The list of Russian birds is quite extensive. Swifts, ducks, pigeons and tits, sparrows and crows live here, which can be seen on every street, in every park and square. There are also rarer representatives of the world of birds. These are storks, cranes, owls, red-footed falcons, partridges and many others. Each of them is interesting in its own way and is an excellent object for study.
Birds of central Russia
This part of the country is home to just a huge number of birds. And every year an increasing number of birds stay here for the winter. They settle in parks and squares, under the roofs of houses. Often residents feed their feathered neighbors, and this allows them to have a satisfying winter. You can often meet here the cuckoo, kestrel, oriole and nuthatch. These birds began to increasingly settle closer to people. In city parks, on ponds and lakes, you can see a lot of ducks and even swans. And at night you can hear the hoot of an owl and the shrill cry of a falcon.
Birds of the middle lane - more than 70 nomadic and sedentary species, as well asmore than 60 varieties of migratory birds. In the warm season, they live here, and with the advent of cold weather they go to Asia and Africa.
City Birds
Many birds of central Russia prefer to settle near human habitation. There are at least 36 species of urban birds in this region. Some of them settle directly in urban buildings. Others prefer parks and squares, build their nests in trees and bushes. Watching urban birds, you can learn interesting facts and features of their life. For example, it is possible to discover such intellectual abilities of birds that we did not even suspect before. You just need to raise your eyes to the sky more often and listen carefully to the world around you.
Benefits and harms brought to man
Of course, the benefits of urban birds are so obvious that it's not worth even talking about it. For example, sparrows, whose population is simply impossible to count, are constantly in search of food. With their small beaks, they exterminate millions of small insects per day, and also peck out hundreds of thousands of weed grains. No wonder they are called orderlies of city dumps and dumps.
It is interesting that the starling is able to gobble up as many bugs, spiders and caterpillars in a day as it weighs. Moreover, from this he will not get fat at all, because he will spend all his energy searching for new food.
But birds can also be harmful.
Bird Trouble
In places of mass accumulation of birds, fleas begin to breed,flies, ticks and lice. In addition, some birds are a source and carriers of a very dangerous disease - ornithosis. This disease can be transmitted to humans and in some cases is fatal. Also, birds can carry diseases such as encephalitis, pasteurellosis, brucellosis and others.
Quite often, small birds such as sparrows fly into stores, warehouses and malls looking for food. There they spoil the products, peck at the packaging and render the goods unusable. Bird droppings not only spoil the appearance of buildings and streets, but also cause rust on the metal parts of buildings and structures. Flocks of birds disrupt the operation of power lines, interfere with the normal operation of airports. Destroy crops in orchards, orchards and fields.
Forest birds
Many birds of the middle zone still prefer to settle in the forests. Deciduous massifs are preferred by black grouse, swift, cedar, nightingale and others. The floodplain forests were chosen by other birds: blue tit, quark and blue magpie. Also, many insectivorous birds live in the forests: woodpeckers, flycatchers, pigeons and so on. Here they build their nests and breed.
Coniferous arrays are rich in golden eagles, cuckoos, owls. You can also find lentils and the familiar titmouse here. Sometimes it may seem that the coniferous forest is rather lifeless, and there is deathly silence in it. This is far from true. In fact, it is full of inhabitants, especially birds, you just need to learn to listen and hear them.
Lark
One of the mosta well-known migratory bird is the field lark. This small bird weighs only 40 grams, and reaches a length of no more than 19 cm. They arrive very early, as soon as the snow melts and the first thaws appear. He builds a nest a little later, when a lot of green vegetation appears. And at first, the bird feeds on last year's plant seeds and extracts sleeping insects from under the frozen ground.
The field lark lives on the ground and eats there too. But he sings only in the air. Taking off to a height of 150 meters, it fills the louder the higher it rises. Sometimes it seems that a ringing song comes straight from the blue sky. Descending, the bird sings quieter and more abruptly, and at a height of 15-20 meters it stops altogether.
Heron and Cranes
The well-known crane and heron prefer a near-water lifestyle. In total, there are a little more than 60 species of herons of different sizes in nature. The most famous among them:
- big white;
- black;
- small blue;
- gray heron.
This is a very recognizable creature, it is impossible to confuse it with another bird. Distinguishing features include long graceful legs and a beak famous for its length and straightness, a small short tail and a long neck.
They live most often near the water. They can be found in swamps, small rivers, in lakeside meadows. Herons try to avoid large reservoirs. These birds feed in a very peculiar way. Their diet includes snakes, frogs, tadpoles, snakes, newts, large insects, fry and fish. Some types of herons preferdiversify your table with mice and small moles.
Both the crane and the heron are monogamous birds, that is, they form only one pair. But if the cranes "marry" for life, then the heron creates a couple for the season. The male looks after his partner very beautifully - gracefully crouches and clicks his beak. The male also undertakes most of the work on arranging the nest. From the female it is required only to lay the brought material. Herons hatch chicks in turn, and in one clutch there can be up to 7 eggs.
Depending on the species, the heron can weigh up to 2 kg and have a wingspan of 175 cm.
Cranes are also fairly large birds. The weight of this feathered bird can reach 6 kg, and the wingspan is 2.5 meters. The color of the bird (grey crane) is blue-gray, and the back is darker than the belly. The feathers on the sides and back of the neck are white. The upper part of the head is devoid of plumage, there is only red skin. The paws are dark and the beak is light gray in color.
Cranes migrate in flocks of about 400 individuals. The nutrition of birds is very diverse. They are happy to eat stems and seeds, potatoes, berries and fruits of trees, leaves, roots and tubers of many plants. In summer, the common crane diversifies its diet with mice, crayfish, worms and small birds. They also do not disdain dragonflies, snails, spiders and beetles and other living creatures.
The gray crane is a long-lived bird. In the wild, they can live up to 40 years.
Swallows
Almost all his life swallowspends in flight, only occasionally sitting down somewhere to rest. There are several species of these swift-winged birds:
- city swallow;
- rustic;
- shore swallow.
These are only the most famous and familiar species. In general, the family of swallows has about 80 species. Despite this diversity, they are all very similar and lead almost the same lifestyle. All swallows are insectivorous. They eat midges in huge quantities, which helps a person a lot.
In the air, these birds are real aces. They are able to do many aerobatics, for example, a dead loop. In the air, swallows do everything: dive, somersault, glide, even drink and swim, flying over water.
The most interesting is the shore swallow, or the so-called shore swallow. Unlike her other brethren, she does not build a nest, but lives in a hole. On a steep cliff near a reservoir, such birds dig a deep, sometimes up to one and a half meters, hole. At the end of it is a small extension - the nesting chamber. It is there that the shorebird builds its nest of sticks, twigs and dry blades of grass.
Pigeons
Who does not know these birds, most common in the middle lane? There are more than 300 species in the pigeon family. All of them are very similar to each other, of course, if we exclude decorative breeds from the comparative list. The well-known gray dove is taken as a sample here. It was his domesticated descendants who served people as postmen. Dove is one of the fewbirds that walk as well as they fly. And many urban individuals have become so lazy that they take to the air only in case of emergency.
Surprisingly, the gray dove feeds its chicks. Have you ever heard of bird milk? It's about pigeons. At the moment the chicks are born, a special hormone, prolactin, begins to be produced in the pigeon's brain. As a result of the action of this substance, the inner surface of the bird's goiter, or rather its mucous membranes, begin to produce a special substance similar to a milk-curd mass. Softened seeds eaten by a bird join it. The result is a special nutrient mixture, which is the food for the chicks.
One of the smallest species of pigeons is the dove. Some believe that this is the name of a female pigeon. However, it is not. Unlike the sizar dove, the turtle dove is not a true urbanist. They appear in our area in early May, and fly away in August. They live most often in parks, copses, fields and pine forests. The nests of these birds are located in trees. Although all pigeons build their houses rather casually, the turtle dove's nest, although it looks too delicate, is actually quite strong. Sometimes the dove house is so luminous that you can see the eggs lying in it right from the ground or examine the chicks.
Oriole
Another well-known inhabitant of Russian forests is the Oriole. Its bright yellow plumage involuntarily makes you smile and feel the warmth of a summer day. Oriole arrives at the endMay, when everything around begins to turn green. These are rather large birds, about 25 cm long and weighing 70–75 grams. But even such a seemingly rather big bird is quite difficult to see in the green foliage.
The Oriole's nest is also special. This is a kind of deep hammock suspended in the crown of a tree. No matter how the wind rages, the chicks will never fall out of the nest, as it is very strong, although quite elegant.
The Oriole feeds mainly on beetles, butterflies and spiders. At the end of summer, their diet is diversified by raspberries, bird cherry, and also shadberry. Already in early September, these "sun rays" fly alone to winter in Africa.
Owl
The eagle owl is a fairly large bird. Its wingspan can reach one and a half meters. Most often, these representatives of owls have an ocher-red color. The plumage of the eagle owl has a special structure that allows it to fly absolutely silently. On the territory of Russia there are 5 varieties of these birds. All of them are listed in the Red Book.
The eagle owl lives near ravines, swamps and in old forests. You can recognize him by a kind of wild laughter. The large head of the bird has special feather "ears", and round eyes see perfectly in the dark. Eagle owls have one feature, probably known even to children. They are able to turn their heads as much as 270 degrees.
Owl is a bird of prey. His usual food is ground squirrels, marmots, mice, chipmunks and other small animals. Even in the diet they may have various insects and, oddly enough,hedgehogs. If an eagle owl flies over a pond, he will gladly eat a frog or a fish.
Although the adult owl has no natural enemies, babies can become easy prey for a wolf or a fox. But much more these birds suffer at the hands of man. The fact is that birds often eat rodents living in fields treated with "anti-mouse" poisons. Having eaten a sick, poisoned mouse, the bird has practically no chance of survival.
Swan
In central Russia, there are also fairly large birds. On migrations, for example, the whooper swan is quite common. It winters on the coasts of the Azov and Black Seas.
The whooper swan is a fairly heavy bird, so it spends most of its life in the water. They are quite similar to their counterparts - small swans. Although there is still a difference. In whoopers, yellow shades predominate in the coloring of the beak, and black in small swans. In all other respects they are very similar. The whooper body length is 1.3–1.7 meters, and the weight can reach 15 kg. They have short legs and a beautiful long neck. The plumage of whoopers is white, very soft and warm, it has a lot of fluff.
Like cranes, swans are monogamous, mating for life. Whoopers nest near water bodies and tremblingly protect their territory from the encroachment of strangers.
Wagtail
These small birds appear in our area in early spring. The ice hasn't melted yet, and near the reservoirs you can already meet slender creatures constantly shaking their tails. ATIn nature, there are such types of wagtails:
- white;
- yellow or pliska;
- forest horse;
- field horse;
- meadow pipit.
There are also several other types of skates in our country: steppe, mountain, Siberian and red-throated.
Wagtails spend most of their time on the ground. They even build nests under the roots of a tree, in a pile of brushwood and grass, and near human habitation they can settle in a barn or woodpile. They are almost not afraid of people, even when a person appears near the nest, the wagtail does not take off, but continues to run along the path, taking the danger away from their home.
As you can see, the birds of central Russia are quite numerous and varied. Those listed here are only a small fraction of the representatives of the local fauna.
