- Tachybaptus ruficollis
Identification
23-29cm.
- Dark greyish-brown above
- Paler below with tawny flanks
- Blackish crown and hindneck
- Chestnut throat, ear coverts, and sides and front of neck
- Black bill with white tip
- Yellow gape patch
- Olive-green legs
Distribution
Europe, southern Scandinavia, Turkey, the Middle East, India, China, Korea and Japan.
Taxonomy
About nine subspecies recognised. Nominate race occurs in Europe, Turkey and north-west Africa, capensis (larger with more white in wing) in Egypt, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia from the Caucasus to Burma, iraquensis (with indistinct white wing-bar) in Iraq and south-west Iran, poggei in Japan, China, Taiwan and Malaysia, kunikyonis in the central Ryukyu Islands, philippensis on some of the Philippines, cotabato on Mindanao, vulcanorum on islands from Java to Timor and the Kai Islands and tricolor in Sulawesi, the Moluccas and northern New Guinea Islands.
Habitat
Well-vegetated ponds and lakes, mainly in lowland areas.
Behaviour
Diet
Diet includes small fish and aquatic invertebrates.
Breeding
Its nest is a heap of vegetation in reed beds or other marginal vegetation. 4-6 whitish initially soon becoming stained eggs are laid and are incubated by both sexes for 19-25 days.
Voice
whit-whit and in breeding season utters a whinnying trill, sometimes in duet.
Bird Song
<flashmp3>Tachybaptus ruficollis (song).mp3</flashmp3>
Listen in an external program
