From Opus

Photo by A. Meir
Photo taken: Eilat, Israel

Ardeola ralloides

[edit] Identification

40-49cm

• Short neck
• Thick dark bill, with greenish tip
• Pale buff-brown back, with faint violet sheen
• Greenish legs
• Summer adults have elongated neck feathers. Bill black and blue; legs pink during courtship period
  

Flight: The white wings are concealed when on the ground, the bird looking light brown, in flight it appears almost all white.

[edit] Distribution

Photo by teodor
Maliuc, Tulcea, Danube Delta, July 2007

Breeding range very patchy across southern Europe from Iberia to the Balkans and Ukraine. Also in parts of Turkey, the Middle East, Morocco and Egypt and east to Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. In decline in many areas through the drainage of wetlands but the first breeding for Sardinia was recorded in 1985 and the Balearics in 1997. Has a wide but scattered distribution in sub-Saharan Africa from Senegal to Sudan and Somalia and south to the Cape.

[edit] Taxonomy

This is a monotypic species.^[1]

[edit] Habitat

Freshwater swamps, ponds and ditches, often with very small areas of water, also larger waterbodies with dense vegetation, especially reedbeds with scattered willows.

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Breeding

They nest in small colonies, at shallow marshy lakes, ponds and rivers with reeds. The nest is usually on platforms of sticks in trees or bushes. Three or four eggs are laid.

[edit] Diet

The diet includes insects, fish and amphibians.

[edit] Vocalisation

[edit] References

1. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.

1. Wikipedia
2. Collins Field Guide 5th Edition
3. Collins Bird Guide ISBN 0 00 219728 6

• List of references

[edit] External Links