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Common Tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius, นกกระจิบธรรมดา

The Common Tailorbird (Orthotomus sutorius) is a songbird found across tropical Asia. Popular for its nest made of leaves "sewn" together and immortalized by Rudyard Kipling in his Jungle Book, it is a common resident in urban gardens. Although shy birds that are usually hidden within vegetation, their loud calls are familiar and give away their presence. They are distinctive in having a long upright tail, greenish upper body plumage and rust coloured forehead and crown. This passerine bird is typically found in open farmland, scrub, forest edges and gardens.

Passerine bird

A passerine is any bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or — less accurately — as songbirds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back), which facilitates perching. With more than 110 families and some 5,100 identified species, Passeriformes is the largest order of birds and among the most diverse orders of terrestrial vertebrates.

The passerines contain several groups of brood parasites such as the viduas, cuckoo-finches, and the cowbirds. Most passerines are omnivorous, while the shrikes are carnivorous.

The terms “passerine” and “Passeriformes” are derived from Passer domesticus, the scientific name of the eponymous species (the House Sparrow) and ultimately from the Latin term passer, which refers to sparrows and similar small birds.

Perch

noun a thing on which a bird alights or roosts, typically a branch or a horizontal rod or bar in a birdcage.
• a place where someone or something rests or sits, especially one that is high or precarious: Marian looked down from her perch in a beech tree above the road.

verb [no OBJ., with ADVERBIAL OF PLACE] (of a bird) alight or rest on something: a herring gull perched on the rails for most of the crossing.


Tailorbirds get their name from the way their nest is constructed. The edges of a large leaf are pierced and sewn together with plant fibre or spider silk to make a cradle in which the actual nest is built.

Like most warblers, the common tailorbird is insectivorous. The song is a loud cheeup-cheeup-cheeup with variations across the populations. The disyllabic calls are repeated often

Common Tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius, นกกระจิบธรรมดา

Range map from Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
Range map from www.oiseaux.net - Ornithological Portal Oiseaux.net
www.oiseaux.net is one of those MUST visit pages if you're in to bird watching. You can find just about everything there

Taxonomy and systematics
The scientific name sutorius means "cobbler" rather than "tailor" while Orthotomus means "straight-cutting".

The species was earlier placed in the family Sylviidae but more recent molecular studies place the species within the family Cisticolidae, along with Prinia and Cisticola.

A number of subspecies are recognized within its widespread range in South Asia and Southeast Asia. The nominate race is from the lowlands of Sri Lanka. Race O. s. fernandonis is found in the highlands of Sri Lanka. Neighbouring India has O.s. guzuratus in the peninsula and west to Pakistan while towards the north O. s. patia is found in the Terai of Nepal along the Himalayan foothills until Myanmar.

A small population of O. s. patia is also found in the northern Eastern Ghats (Wangasara). The hills of northeastern India have O. s. luteus. In Southeast Asia O. s. inexpectatus and O. s. maculicollis are found in Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, Malaysia, Cambodia and Vietnam. South east China, including the island of Hainan, and Tonkin in Vietnam have O. s. longicauda while O. s. edela is found on Java.

Description
The common tailorbird is a brightly coloured bird, with bright green upperparts and creamy underparts. They range in size from 10 to 14 centimetres and weigh 6 to 10 grams. They have short rounded wings, a long tail, strong legs and a sharp bill with curved tip to the upper mandible. They are wren-like with a long upright tail that is often moved around.

The crown is rufous and the upperparts are predominantly olive green. The underside is creamy white. The sexes are identical, except that the male has long central tail feathers in the breeding season, although the reliability of sexing data accompanying museum specimens used in determining this sexual dimorphism has been questioned.

Young birds are duller. When calling, the dark patches on the sides of the neck become visible. These are due to the dark pigmented and bare skin that are present in both sexes and sometimes give the appearance of a dark gorget.

Listen to the Common Tailorbird




Own recording with my ZOOM H5 Handy Recorder

Remarks from the Recordist

Early morning bird watching at Tiger Tops Tharu Lodge before going for tiger safari. The bird was maybe 4 meters away, looking at me while singing or calling. A very small bird with a loud voice

www.xeno-canto.org



Behaviour and ecology
Tailorbirds are found singly or in pairs, usually low in the undergrowth or trees sometimes hopping on the ground. They forage for insects and have been known to feed on a range of beetles and bugs. They are attracted to insects at flowers and are known to favour the inflorescences of mango. They also visit flowers such as those of Bombax, Salmalia for nectar and are sometimes covered in pollen, giving them a golden-headed appearance.

The birds roost alone during the non-breeding season but may roost side-by-side during the breeding season, sometimes with the newly fledged juvenile sandwiched between the adults. The roost sites chosen are thin twigs on trees with cover above them and were often close to human habitation and lights.

Breeding
The breeding season is March to December peaking from June to August in India, coinciding with the wet season. In Sri Lanka the main breeding periods are March to May and August to september, although they can breed throughout the year.

Although the name is derived from their nest construction habit, the nest is not unique and is also found in many Prinia warblers. The nest is a deep cup, lined with soft materials and placed in thick foliage and the leaves holding the nest have the upper surfaces outwards making it difficult to spot. The punctures made on the edge of the leaves are minute and do not cause browning of the leaves, further aiding camouflage.

The nest lining of a nest in Sri Lanka that was studied by Casey Wood was found to be lined with lint from Euphorbia, Ceiba pentandra and Bombax malabaricum species. Jerdon wrote that the bird made knots, however no knots are used. Wood classified the processes used by the tailorbird in nest as sewing, rivetting, lacing and matting. In some cases the nest is made from a single large leaf, the margins of which are rivetted together.

Sometimes the fibres from one rivet are extended into an adjoining puncture and appearing more like sewing. The stitch is made by piercing two leaves and drawing fibre through them. The fibres fluff out on the outside and in effect they are more like rivets.

There are many variations in the nest and some may altogether lack the cradle of leaves. One observer noted that the birds did not utilize cotton that was made available while another observer, Edward Hamilton Aitken, was able to induce them to use artificially supplied cotton. The usual clutch is three eggs.

The incubation period is about 12 days. Both male and female feed the young. Mortality of eggs and chicks is high due to predation by rodents, cats, crow-pheasants, lizards and other predators.

The young birds fledge in about 14 days. The female alone incubates according to some sources, while others suggest that both sexes incubate; however, both parents take part in feeding and sanitation. The males are said to feed the incubating female.

An unusual case of a pair of tailorbirds adopting chicks in an artificially translocated nest belonging to a different pair has been recorded. Nests are sometimes parasitized by the Plaintive Cuckoo (Cacomantis merulinus).

Darzee and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi
Darzee and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi

In culture
“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”, one of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book stories, includes a tailorbird couple, Darzee (which means "tailor" in Urdu) and his wife, as two of the key characters. Darzee's wife is said to have feigned injury, but this behaviour is unknown in this species. A classic book of children's folk tales in Bengali by Upendrakishore Ray is titled "Tuntunir Boi", after the local name for the species, tuntuni.

Regional Names
Assamese - টিপচী চৰাই (Tiposi Sorai), Bengali - টুনটুনি (Tuntuni), Gujarati - દરજીડો, Hindi - दर्जी (Darjii), Kannada - ಸಿಂಪಿಗ, Malayalam - അടയ്ക്കാപ്പക്ഷി, Marathi - शिंपी (Shinpii), Nepali - पातसिउने फिस्टो (Paatsiune Phisto), Sinhalese - බට්ටිච්චා (Battichcha)

Conservation status
Common Tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius, นกกระจิบธรรมดา
Least Concern (IUCN 3.1)
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2013.2.
International Union for Conservation of Nature. Retrieved 26 November 2013.



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

www.birdforum.net


Sighted: (Date of first photo that I could use) 11th of January 2016
Location: In the river outside my hotel, Corbett park, India


Common Tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius, นกกระจิบธรรมดา
Common Tailorbird - 11 January 2016 - At my hotel in Corbett Park

Common Tailorbird, Orthotomus sutorius, นกกระจิบธรรมดา
Common Tailorbird - 11 January 2016 - At my hotel in Corbett Park



PLEASE! If I have made any mistakes identifying any bird, PLEASE let me know on my guestbook



       
                  



                                       

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