dabchick

[Alteration of dobchick : Middle English doppe, diving bird (from Old English -doppa; see didapper) + CHICK.]

Tachybaptus ruficollis

TAXONOMY

Colymbus ruficollis, Pallas, 1764, Holland. Nine subspecies.

OTHER COMMON NAMES

English: Common grebe, red-throated little grebe, dabchick; French: Grèbe castagneux; German: Zwergtaucher; Spanish: Zampullín Común.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

9.8–11.4 in (25–29 cm); 0.26–0.53 lb (117–241 g). Adult breeding: breast, chin, lores, cap and rest of upperparts blackish, cheeks, throat and side of neck rufous. Sides and flanks dusky more or less washed with rufous, belly variable according to subspecies, ranging from silvery white to black. Most forms have no white in wing, some a small patch on inner secondaries. Bill black-tipped white and with pale yellow wattle at base, eyes red in most of range, yellow in east Asia. Nonbreeding dull brownish, throat and belly whitish, immature similar but with striped neck.

DISTRIBUTION

T. r. ruficollis: Europe and northwest Africa; T. r. iraquensis: Iraq and southwest Iran; T. r. capensis: Africa south of the Sahara, Madagascar, Caucasus and eastwards through India to Myanmar; T. r. poggei: southeast and northeast Asia; T. r.

philippensis: northern Philippines; T. r. cotabato: southeast Philippines; T. r. tricolor: Sulawesi to north New Guinea; T. r. vulcanorum: Java to Timor; T. r. collaris: northeast New Guinea to Solomon Islands.

HABITAT

Mostly small and shallow lakes and ponds, but also along vegetated shores of larger lakes. When not breeding, sometimes on more open water, rarely on coast.

BEHAVIOR

Pairs may reside on the same pond all year, but non-breeding birds may assemble in loose groups of 5–30, occasionally hundreds.

FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET

Usually feeds within 3.3 ft (1 m) of surface, often just peering and picking with head and neck under water or picking from the surface. Diet variable, but mainly insects. Also takes small fish and, unlike most grebes, substantial numbers of snails.

REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY

Courtship display poorly developed and partly replaced by vocal duetting given with remarkable synchrony. Eggs 2–7, usually 4; often two, sometimes three broods a year. Incubation 20–25 days, young stay in nest for a week and can fly when 44–48 days old. They sometimes help feed older siblings.

CONSERVATION STATUS

Not threatened. Widespread and generally common.

SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS

None known.

The noun has one meaning:

Meaning #1: small European grebe
  Synonyms: little grebe, Podiceps ruficollis

Little Grebe
In breeding plumage
Conservation status
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Podicipediformes
Family:	Podicipedidae
Genus:	Tachybaptus
Species:	T. ruficollis
Binomial name
Tachybaptus ruficollis (Pallas, 1764)
Distribution of the Little Grebe.
Synonyms
Podiceps ruficollis

T. r. capensis with a juvenile in Krishna Wildlife Sanctuary, Andhra Pradesh, India.

The Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis), also known as Dabchick, is 23 to 29 cm in length. It is the smallest European member of the grebe family of water birds and is commonly found in open bodies of water across most of its range.

Contents 1 Description 2 Taxonomy 3 Distribution 4 Behaviour 5 References 6 External links

Description

T. r. capensis - Non-breeding plumage- preening after bath in an Indian Lotus Nelumbo nucifera Pond in Hyderabad, India.

Little Grebe is a small water bird with a pointed bill. The adult is unmistakable in summer, predominantly dark above with its rich, rufous colour neck, cheeks and flanks, and bright yellow gape. The rufous is replaced by a dirty brownish grey in non-breeding and juvenile birds.

Juvenile birds have a yellow bill with a small black tip, and black and white streaks on the cheeks and sides of the neck as seen below. This yellow bill darkens as the juveniles age, eventually turning black once in adulthood

In winter, its size, buff plumage, with a darker back and cap, and “powder puff” rear end enable easy identification of this species. The Little Grebe's breeding call, given singly or in duet, is a trilled repeated weet-weet-weet or wee-wee-wee which sounds like a horse whinnying.

Taxonomy

There are nine currently-recognized subspecies of Little Grebe, separated principally by size and colouration.^[2]

• T. r. ruficollis is found from Europe and western Russia south to North Africa.
• T. r. iraquensis is found in southeastern Iraq and southwestern Iran.
• T. r. capensis is found in Sub-Saharan Africa, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, and the Indian subcontinent, extending east to Burma.
• T. r. poggei
• T. r. philippensis
• T. r. cotobato
• T. r. tricolor
• T. r. volcanorum
• T. r. collaris

Distribution

This bird breeds in small colonies in heavily vegetated areas of freshwater lakes across Europe, much of Asia down to New Guinea, and most of Africa. Most birds move to more open or coastal waters in winter, but it is only migratory in those parts of its range where the waters freeze.

Behaviour

Little Grebe is an excellent swimmer and diver, and pursues its fish and aquatic invertebrate prey s underwater. It uses the vegetation skilfully as a hiding place.

Like all grebes, it nests on the water's edge, since its legs are set very far back and it cannot walk well. Usually four to seven eggs are laid. When the adult bird leaves the nest it usually takes care to cover the eggs with weeds. The young leave the nest and can swim soon after hatching and chicks are often carried on the backs of the swimming adults.^[3]

It does not normally interbreed with the larger grebes in the Old World, but a bird in Cornwall mated with a vagrant North American Pied-billed Grebe, producing hybrid young

References

1. ^ BirdLife International (2008). Tachybaptus ruficollis. In: IUCN 2008. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Downloaded on 2008-11-01.
2. ^ Ogilvie, Malcolm; Chris Rose (2003). Grebes of the World. Bruce Coleman. ISBN 1-872842-03-8. 
3. ^ Finn, Frank (1905). "Notes on the nesting of the Indian Dabchick pages=10-17". Bird Notes 4. http://www.archive.org/stream/birdnotes05fore#page/n17/mode/2up. 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tachybaptus ruficollis

• BTO BirdFacts - Little Grebe
• Little Grebe videos, photos & sounds at the Internet Bird Collection
• Ageing and sexing (PDF) by Javier Blasco-Zumeta
• Grebes of the World by André Konter

v • d • e Grebes (order: Podicipediformes • family: Podicipedidae) Genus Species Tachybaptus Little Grebe • Australasian Grebe • Madagascar Grebe • Alaotra Grebe • Least Grebe Podilymbus Pied-billed Grebe • Atitlán Grebe Rollandia White-tufted Grebe • Titicaca Flightless Grebe Poliocephalus Hoary-headed Grebe • New Zealand Dabchick Podiceps Red-necked Grebe • Great Crested Grebe • Slavonian Grebe (or Horned Grebe) • Black-necked Grebe (or Eared Grebe) • Colombian Grebe • Great Grebe • Silvery Grebe • Junin Flightless Grebe • Hooded Grebe Aechmophorus Western Grebe • Clark's Grebe

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