Dupel bird: description, habitat, species features, reproduction, life cycle, characteristic signs and features

Dupel is a small bird of the snipe family that has several names: Latin, found in biology textbooks, Gallinago media, in German its name is consonant with Russian - Doppelschnepfe. It is also called belokuprik. Refers to the order Charadriiformes.

Some confuse this representative with snipe, but if you look closely, you can notice a number of differences, which will be discussed later in the article. The reader also learns the features of the life cycle of a bird, a hollow with a photo and a description of its distinctive features and behavior in the mating season. We will also surprise you with the results of studies by Swedish ornithologists who brought this representative of birds to the first place among the other migratory birds.

Appearance

Externally, the bird hollow really has a huge resemblance to snipe. The same brownish-brown stripes on the head, going from the beak to the crown, but the abdomen is not white, like a snipe, but all in spots resembling ripples running across the body. A striking difference between these two species is the presence of three extreme tail feathers of a white color in the hollow, occasionally with grayish ripples. This is especially true for a bird that just took off from the ground.

In a hollow (belokuprik), the beak is shorter, but stronger. The colors of females and males are identical. Experienced ornithologists distinguish them by weight and wing size during take-off. Females are slightly larger than males in weight, but the wing size of males is longer, like the beak. We present the research data in the table below:

The bird takes off the hollow a little bit hard, compared to its relative, but the flight is smooth and long. The beak has a dark brown color, closer to the base turning into a yellowish tint. Young growth differs from adult individuals only in the absence of a white part of the tail feathers, they have it with black mottled spots. The size of a bird's hollow is reminiscent of city pigeons, only the beak is longer.

Habitat

Dupel is distributed in Eurasia from the countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula to the banks of the Yenisei River. However, in Central Europe it can be rarely seen, therefore, both in Belarus and in Ukraine it was included in the list of endangered species in the Red Book. In Asian countries, these birds are rarely seen, several meetings were recorded even in India. In Russia, its number is sufficient, therefore, even hunt for it, however, the number also suffers from human activities to drain the swamps.

The bird hollow settles in meadows with high humidity, loves marshy places with low vegetation, riverbanks with willow or alder. In autumn, the seasonal migration of these migratory birds, which have chosen the center and the south of Africa for wintering, sometimes stop in countries on the Mediterranean coast or on the islands of Great Britain.

Habits and character

The bird hollow leads a lonely lifestyle, even in the fall before flying to warmer climes you will not see numerous flocks, they fly away either alone or in an amount of 10-12 individuals. This shy bird, which leads a nocturnal lifestyle, can feed at dusk - before sunset and before the dawn of the sun.

If someone or something scares her, she immediately takes off, making a characteristic hum in her wings. The wings lift the body quite hard, and after 30 meters the bird descends back to the ground. The flight is low, approximately at an altitude of 3 or 5 meters. However, if a hunter hears a shot, it can fly much further and hide in a clearing in the middle of the forest.

What eats a hollow?

The diet of this bird consists of small mollusks and earthworms, which he pulls with his beak from marshy places, in soft peat. Like a dupel and larvae, and insects themselves. In addition to animal food, the hollow feeds on plants. It can be found on potato and wheat fields, where birds eat seeds and grains. If the year turned out to be rainy, then the hollow can appear on millet and clover plantations.

Already from mid-summer, these birds begin to stock up on fat for a long flight to warmer climes. They fly out of their native places thick and clumsy, taking off from the surface of the earth hard, but during the flight they lose all fat completely, so they arrive thin and emaciated for the winter.

How does belokuporik sing?

You can hear the singing of a hollow during currenting. For this purpose, males gather in large groups in clearings or open meadows. Singing consists of complex triads, popping, whistling and ringing, which alternate one after another. A song can last a few seconds, the hollow sounds like a voice or a cracking beak.

In fright, when a bird suddenly takes off into the air, it most often does this in complete silence, occasionally making a dull grunt. The voice of a bird hollow is as follows:

“Ffrrrit-tititi-fiit-tititi-fiit-titi-turrrr” or “bibbe-libi-bibib”.

Seasonal migration

Quite interesting information was published after their study by Swedish ornithologists. They measured the speed and endurance of birds during seasonal flights to warm places and made an incredible discovery. It turns out that the hollow is not only the fastest bird in the world, capable of flying at a speed of 100 km per hour, but also the most hardy.

Researchers attached on the backs of 10 males of a hollow a geolocation, having a weight of 1.1 grams, and detected for how long they reached wintering sites. It turned out that the birds flew from Sweden for wintering to the central part of Africa in three days, covering 6,800 km, and, as it turned out later using satellite data, there was no fair wind in their way. In addition, it became known that the birds never touched the earth's surface, although most of the way lies on land, they did not eat and did not sleep all the time of the flight.

Toking

Immediately after returning to their native land, birds gather in the meadows and small gaps between the marshes to find a pair for mating. Each year, mating occurs at the same places selected by birds, although males in search of a female can travel to their neighbors, to a nearby site.

After arrival, the male chooses his own place, trampled his feet. One individual may have several such aligned sites. The currenting procedure begins in the late evening or at the beginning of the night. The male shows himself to the female, fanning his chest, flapping his wings and spreading his tail with a fan, sparkling with white feathers. At the same time, it makes special sounds that resemble blows of a metal object on a wooden surface.

If the female shows interest, the male begins to walk around her, taking spectacular poses in his opinion. If an opponent appears, then the males enter the battle, and those for whose favor a fight occurs, watch what is happening on the sidelines. The winning male mates with the chosen representative and after that safely leaves the chosen one, later completely not participating in the construction of the nest and raising the chicks.

Female nesting

The female seeks and equips a place for the nest on her own immediately after mating and mating. The egg hatching ground is on the ground, usually in thick grass or shrubbery on a dry patch of land. A small depression, approximately 3.5 cm, is lined with dry grass or soft moss. The size of the nest itself has a diameter of 14 cm. Usually, the masonry is demolished one year, but if the nest is devastated by predators, then a second one is possible. The first takes place in the second half of April.

The eggs in the hollow are dirty brown in color and have a pear-shaped shell shape, with grayish spots. In clutch there can be no more than 4 eggs, weighing 23 grams. Only female incubates them for three weeks. Another two weeks will pass before the chicks cover with feathers. They grow and develop quite quickly, because after a month they perfectly fly after their mother from place to place in search of food. During this period, they are compared with her in size, however, they are nearby even up to 45 days. In the photo, the bird is shown along with a little chick, the color of the plumage of which hides it as much as possible in the surrounding area, making it inconspicuous for predators.

Chicks life

Mature chicks leave their mother at the end of July or at the beginning of the last month of summer. They fly to open meadows and fields, coastal stripes of rivers and humid swampy places, where there is a large accumulation of various insects, snails, worms and other small living creatures, which these birds love so much. However, if the summer is rainy and the riverbanks are flooded with water, they are transported to the sown fields of oats or flax, eating their grains. Love growing clover.

The chicks are full enough to prepare for the long flight. By the beginning of September, they gradually begin to fly away to their wintering places. Individual hollows can be found in October. It is noticed that they fly off singly or in small groups only at night, so these birds fly away imperceptibly, however, like returning back.

Hunting for hollows

Dupel meat is quite tasty and tender, so hunters are happy to wait for the start of the hunting season. Due to the fact that the population of these birds decreases every year due to human activity, it is allowed to hunt them only with the onset of August, when the chicks have already grown up and gained the necessary mass for the flight.

It is easy to hunt for hollows, as the bird flies in a straight line and is quite low above the ground. A feature of belokuprik is considered its exposure. They can sit for a long time in one place without movement and take off almost from under a person’s feet, they can hide from dogs in bushes or tall grass in the hope that they will not be noticed.

It is considered good luck to find one belokuprika, as usually several more lurked nearby. Even a novice hunter will not come home without a full bag of prey shot.

The article gives a full description of the bird, a hollow or, in other words, a white bell with photos and interesting information. Despite the fact that the bird on the territory of Russia has not yet been included in the Red Book, you need to follow the rules and do not hunt during the forbidden period of mating and raising offspring.