Rufous-tailed Scrub Robin

Heckensänger ( Cercotrichas galactotes )

The Heckensänger ( Cercotrichas galactotes ) is a species of bird in the family of flycatchers, which has close the throttles.

Description

He is a good 15 inches long, is slim, for a relatively long legs and flycatchers pretty bluebird similar. On his long, auburn fan tail, which is lined with wide black and white at the top, you can see him quickly. The top is brown-red to brownish gray. The rear also has a pronounced singer rahmfarbenen About eye-streak and a sand-colored underside.

Subspecies and their distribution

In the subspecies Cercotrichas galactotes galactotes ( Temminck, 1820 ) is the entire top foxy brown-red. It occurs in the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa, Israel and the southwestern Syria and has been brooding in southern France.

In the subspecies Cercotrichas galactotes syriaca ( Hemprich & Ehrenberg, 1833) is limited to the chestnut brown on rump and tail, the rest of the top is gray-brown. It is distributed in the Balkans and in Greece, in the western and southern Turkey, western Syria and Lebanon.

The subspecies Cercotrichas galactotes familiaris ( Ménétries, 1832) comes in Transcaucasia, in southeastern Turkey, Iraq and in northeastern and eastern Saudi Arabia to the east front to the southern Kazakhstan, eastern Iran, eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan.

The sooner the Heckensänger attributed African subspecies minor and hamer toni now as a separate species, namely Cercotrichas minor ( Cabanis, 1850), separated from the rear singer.

Way of life

The Heckensänger inhabited gardens, vineyards, palm trees and olive groves. He sits conspicuously on bushes and on the ground with hanging wings and address its long range tail perpendicular to. He often behaves quite secretly, but is not particularly shy. He sings on the open waiting on telephone wires or slow down one flight. The somewhat reminiscent of the skylark song is very melodious, but demolished and variable in size. Its call-note is a hard " Teck ". Heckensänger live worms, ants, beetles and fruit. The nest is located in hedges of cacti and palm bushes. It is created from grass and twigs about two meters above the ground and, occasionally lined with plant fibers and parts of snake skins. It is a migratory bird and hiking in winter in more southern areas.