Bornean Treepie
Encyclopedia
The Bornean Treepie is a passerine
bird
belonging to the Dendrocitta
genus of treepie
s in the crow
family, Corvidae
. It is endemic to the island of Borneo
in South-east Asia. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies
of the Sumatran Treepie (D. occipitalis).
and legs are grey-black and the eyes are reddish. The Sumatran Treepie differs in having a pale brown back, a dark brown head with a white nape and a thinner bill.
The Bornean Treepie is a noisy bird with a variety of loud, explosive calls including a bell-like whistle and various grunting and chattering calls. It is able to mimic the calls of other birds.
, forest edge, bamboo
thickets and scrubland and is sometimes seen in cultivated areas. It forages in the tree canopy, alone or in small groups, searching for small fruit
, seed
s and large insect
s such as beetle
s and cockroach
es. It can become tame, visiting villages to feed on scraps.
Little is known about its breeding habits. The nest
is shallow, built of fine twigs and placed in a low tree. The eggs
are greenish-white with brown markings concentrated in a ring at the wider end.
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird
Bird
Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...
belonging to the Dendrocitta
Dendrocitta
Dendrocitta is a genus of long-tailed passerine birds in the crow and jay family Corvidae. They are resident in tropical South and Southeast Asia....
genus of treepie
Treepie
The treepies comprise four closely related genera of long-tailed passerine birds in the family Corvidae...
s in the crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
family, Corvidae
Corvidae
Corvidae is a cosmopolitan family of oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, rooks, jackdaws, jays, magpies, treepies, choughs and nutcrackers. The common English names used are corvids or the crow family , and there are over 120 species...
. It is endemic to the island of Borneo
Borneo
Borneo is the third largest island in the world and is located north of Java Island, Indonesia, at the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia....
in South-east Asia. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies
Subspecies
Subspecies in biological classification, is either a taxonomic rank subordinate to species, ora taxonomic unit in that rank . A subspecies cannot be recognized in isolation: a species will either be recognized as having no subspecies at all or two or more, never just one...
of the Sumatran Treepie (D. occipitalis).
Description
It is a fairly large bird, 40 centimetres in length, with a long graduated tail, broad rounded wings and short weak legs. The underparts are pinkish-brown. The head is also pinkish-brown with a pale silver crown and a dark stripe over the eye and across the forehead. The back is greyish and the rump is pale. The wings are black with a white patch and the tail is grey with black tips to the feathers. The billBeak
The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, fighting, probing for food, courtship and feeding young...
and legs are grey-black and the eyes are reddish. The Sumatran Treepie differs in having a pale brown back, a dark brown head with a white nape and a thinner bill.
The Bornean Treepie is a noisy bird with a variety of loud, explosive calls including a bell-like whistle and various grunting and chattering calls. It is able to mimic the calls of other birds.
Ecology
It is fairly common in most mountain ranges in the northern and central parts of Borneo. It mainly occurs between 300 and 2,800 metres above sea-level, being most common in valleys and foothills at the lower end of that range. It inhabits forestForest
A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...
, forest edge, bamboo
Bamboo
Bamboo is a group of perennial evergreens in the true grass family Poaceae, subfamily Bambusoideae, tribe Bambuseae. Giant bamboos are the largest members of the grass family....
thickets and scrubland and is sometimes seen in cultivated areas. It forages in the tree canopy, alone or in small groups, searching for small fruit
Fruit
In broad terms, a fruit is a structure of a plant that contains its seeds.The term has different meanings dependent on context. In non-technical usage, such as food preparation, fruit normally means the fleshy seed-associated structures of certain plants that are sweet and edible in the raw state,...
, seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...
s and large insect
Insect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
s such as beetle
Beetle
Coleoptera is an order of insects commonly called beetles. The word "coleoptera" is from the Greek , koleos, "sheath"; and , pteron, "wing", thus "sheathed wing". Coleoptera contains more species than any other order, constituting almost 25% of all known life-forms...
s and cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es. It can become tame, visiting villages to feed on scraps.
Little is known about its breeding habits. The nest
Bird nest
A bird nest is the spot in which a bird lays and incubates its eggs and raises its young. Although the term popularly refers to a specific structure made by the bird itself—such as the grassy cup nest of the American Robin or Eurasian Blackbird, or the elaborately woven hanging nest of the...
is shallow, built of fine twigs and placed in a low tree. The eggs
Egg (biology)
An egg is an organic vessel in which an embryo first begins to develop. In most birds, reptiles, insects, molluscs, fish, and monotremes, an egg is the zygote, resulting from fertilization of the ovum, which is expelled from the body and permitted to develop outside the body until the developing...
are greenish-white with brown markings concentrated in a ring at the wider end.