The only bird in the family of woodpeckers that does not really know how to dig a bark of trees and flies south in winter is a turntable, or turret. You will learn from this article why this little forest inhabitant, who inhabits almost all of Europe and Asia, was called so, and what other features are seemingly plain and very interesting bird.
What does a turntable look like
The turntable is covered with brownish-gray feathers with light and dark mottles. Her abdomen is light, ocher-gray, adorned with a thin transverse pattern, and the back is dark, with black longitudinal wavy stains. Incidentally, the size and color of both male and female are the same.
This bird of the woodpecker family is markedly different from its relatives. She is small, a little more than a sparrow, and cannot boast the same bright color as most woodpeckers. If the turntable notices danger, then it, frozen and falling to a tree knot, is very difficult to detect for a predator.
The tail of the verticollis consists of soft feathers. It is straight, but at the end it is slightly rounded and at all cannot be, like the rest of the woodpeckers, a reliable support when climbing trees. The beak of a bird is small, poorly adapted for gouging.
What is a turntable similar to representatives of the woodpecker family
And although the bird vertichike looks more like a sparrow, it also has related signs with woodpeckers:
- a long, thin tongue that has tiny teeth covered with sticky mucus on its tip (it helps the bird to get the main food);
- toes, large and divided into two pairs, which look forward and backward;
- the singing of this bird strongly resembles the cry emitted by the woodpeckers representing the order, its congeners - a small motley and green woodpecker;
- a turntable diving, consisting of rapid flapping of wings, which alternate with flying by inertia when the wings are folded, like other members of this family.
In addition, like woodpeckers, the tartan lives in hollows and prefers deciduous forests to conifers.
Turntable: why was this bird called so?
I must say that this bird is quite lazy, clumsy and moves only when there is an extreme need for it. It completely lacks the playfulness and indefatigability of its relatives, woodpeckers, and other flying birds, but at the same time it has a name that is more suitable for a brisk person - a verticolla, why so?
They called the bird the same in almost all languages for its amazing ability to turn its head. Everything that frightens or annoys a bird forces it to make amazing grimaces, and the more it is scared, the more strange it takes. A spinner can stretch its neck forward, scrubbing feathers and fan its tail or stretch forward with its entire body, bend over and, closing its eyes, emit a dull grunt.
If you look into the hollow where the female hatches her eggs, she will open her beak and begin to hiss loudly, bending her neck like a snake. The dark feathers moving on the back while supporting the illusion of an angry amphibian.
Incidentally, caught vertigods are one of the most entertaining birds that can be kept in captivity.
How a turntable makes housing
The bird we are talking about is most likely to live on the outskirts of clearings, edges and small clearings in mixed or deciduous forests, where a large number of lindens, aspen and birches grow. Not afraid of a turntable and people, willingly settling nearby. It can live, for example, in a hole in the wall of a barn or an old country house.
Like all woodpeckers, this nimble bird loves hollows, as well as horizontal passages in rotten branches or other voids. It is also suitable for birdhouses, and even minks for bee-eater and chasers, if there are trees or bushes nearby.
In the hollow, she does not spread the litter, leaving there only pieces of wood.
Sometimes a bird of twister can hollow itself out itself (it usually does this in the soft wood of aspen trees), but most often it takes what it likes with a fight. A courageous vertigolf can drive a titmouse, a nuthatch, and a flycatcher out of their hollow and eject nests, even with ready-made masonry, to lay from 6 to 10 matte-white rounded testicles that appear pinkish from the translucent protein.
By the way, from the remnants of nests and eggshells scattered on the ground, you can find the tree where the verticot has settled.
Growing offspring is hard work
Turntables arrive late and right there, after finding and freeing their living space, they begin to sing at her entrance, slightly in the nose, loudly and longly: “T, t, t, t ...”, trying to win the heart of a beautiful lady. If the male does not hear the answer in two days, he sets off to look for happiness in a new place where everything starts all over again.
The female sits on the nest more often than the male, about 11 days, and very tightly, leaving him very reluctantly (in case of detection by a person, she even allows herself to be pulled together) and only if necessary.
Hatching offspring lasts up to 19 days. It must be said that these creatures, representing the family of woodpeckers, are not particularly accurate. Parents carefully feed their tiny offspring, but do not care about the cleanliness of the nest, as a result of which the hollow turns into a garbage pit by the end of the season.
Mature chicks - a copy of their parents
At ten days of age, the chicks that are born naked and completely helpless can already fend for themselves. They remarkably demonstrate their acting talents, hissing and wriggling like a snake, at the moment of danger and justifying the name “turntable” (why these birds were called that way, it’s probably clear now).
The fledged offspring is selected from the hollow and for some time continues to use the cares of the parents, who are still feeding them. But soon they will finally leave the habitat and before the end of summer will go to more southern regions in order to fly to their native places and bring their offspring next year.
I must say that the turntables are quite aggressive even to representatives of their own species, therefore they stay alone and rarely gather in small flocks for migration to warm countries.
The main places where turntables overwinter are areas of Central Africa or South Asia.
What feeds the vertigold
This small forest bird feeds mainly directly on the ground, eating ants and their larvae with the help of its long sticky tongue. Turntables can often be seen near the anthill, which the bird specifically digs out to get pupae.
Ant eggs are a special treat for the turntables, by the way, the birds also feed their offspring with them. And they get the food at such a speed that it is impossible to keep track of the instantly ejected tongue, which immediately disappears in the beak already with the pupa.
Significantly less frequently, the vertigolph feeds on caterpillars, aphids, and all kinds of small bugs. Like relatives, she skillfully removes insect larvae from under the bark of trees if it has exfoliated or rotted.
A little more about turntables
In Russia, a verticillis is found in large areas, but nevertheless, due to deforestation, changes in landscapes, and also due to unknown reasons, the number of birds in certain areas can radically change. This proves their great mobility in the choice of places for nesting, as well as the ability to quickly redistribute across the territory, depending on what environmental situation prevails there.