16 September 2024: Day 10, Fuente de Piedra, Osuna, and the plains east of Sevilla, WINGS Spain in Autumn Click on right here to see (typically) the place I’m at this time.
One of many goal species throughout our tour’s last days is a really massive chicken that lives on the steppes and grasslands of Spain. The nice bustard (Otis tarda) is probably the most sexually dimorphic of all birds when it comes to dimension. The males can weigh as a lot as 42 kilos, are the second heaviest flying chicken on earth(*), and common 2.48 instances the burden of females. Additionally they stand 3+ ft tall so if one’s on the market within the grass we must always have the ability to see it.
Sadly the colourful vary map under is a bit deceptive. The nice bustard (Otis tarda) is Endangered and in low numbers in all places besides Spain. In response to Wikipedia, “Greater than half the worldwide inhabitants is present in central Spain with round 30,000 people.” Some places in Europe have as few as 100 to 1,000 birds.
Nice bustards are well-known for his or her courtship shows. In March the males collect on a lek to joust and puff their feathers.
Females are attracted by options of the show that we people can not hear or see. As an illustration, bustards make low frequency sounds that carry an extended distance in open nation. Maybe she hears him from far-off.
Bustards’ potential to see UV gentle performs an element of their courtship. The males’ reddish/brownish feathers include a pigment known as porphyrin, chemically associated to hemoglobin, that reveals intense crimson fluorescence underneath ultraviolet gentle, as seen in an experiment under.
When a male nice bustard fluffs his throat feathers the females see shiny glowing magenta in UV gentle.
Porphyrin pigment breaks down throughout publicity to daylight so this characteristic is misplaced in older feathers as male breeding plumage ages. By the point the glow is gone, the males don’t want it. Courtship is over till subsequent yr.
(*) p.s. The heaviest chicken able to flight is the Kori bustard.
