The lentil bird is a beautiful songbird that belongs to the finches family. Lentils have a small size and body weight: its weight is from 19 to 25 grams. The bird has a fairly bright plumage. The male has a red chest, back, head and rump. In females and young birds, the plumage is greenish-gray, the abdomen is white, and the wings are dark. Males have colorful plumage after they arrive for the winter for the second time, and until then, young males have a very dull greenish color. The lentil bird has a strong conical beak.
The main habitats of lentils are damp forests, banks of rivers and streams. It also lives in city parks, gardens, and is found in lilac thickets. The main habitat of the bird is open space, where bushes grow and there are forest edges. It is quite rare to meet a lentil in its natural habitat, since it behaves very carefully and prefers to hide in dense foliage, but you can recognize its presence by the sonorous voice of a bird.
Lentil bird (photo in the article) ismigratory birds, so the area of its distribution is quite wide: almost the entire European part of Russia, the Caucasus, the Asian part of Russia and Siberia. To build nests, lentils use the roots and stems of grasses, diligently lining the nest tray with down and grass to give accuracy. Branches of shrubs and low trees serve as the main nest building site. A full clutch contains about 5-6 eggs, which are greenish in color with purple spots and speckles. Incubation, which lasts about 14 days, is carried out by the female lentil, and the male at this time is engaged in feeding it. The chicks leave the nest quite early, not even being able to fly well.
The lentil bird got its name thanks to the melodic trills that are formed as a result of the sonorous and fairly clear sound combination “che-che-vi-tsa”, which is a kind of hallmark of a colorful feathered bird. The basis for nutrition of lentils are various overripe seeds and fruits, less often they consume small insects (while feeding chicks), mainly caterpillars, small beetles and aphids. In the spring time, the bird cherry blossoms, and for lentils, its flowers become the basis of nutrition at this time.
Lentil bird winters in Asia and India. Males with a red color are the first to go to wintering grounds. After them, old males fly away, which do not have nests, and the last ones are young birds. Many bird lovers decide to keep lentils at home and face some problems, the main one being the processmolting. Shedding of lentils in captivity occurs due to improper feeding, which leads to obesity and metabolic disorders. Therefore, the lentil bird is very demanding on the quality of feed.
Lentils are a colorful feather that takes place in a children's literary work, authored by Nikolai Sladkov. "The Lentil Bird" is a book that includes interesting poetic stories about various forest birds.
