White-winged Crake (Porzana exquisita). Order Crane-shaped Taste and dishes from cranes

General characteristics and field characteristics. Total length 210-250 mm. The coloring from a distance looks uniformly dark; up close, small light streaks and transverse stripes on the sides of the body and a white undertail are clearly visible. The beak is short. It is rare to see a crake at the edge of thickets on reservoirs and, as an exception, in the air, suddenly raised on the wing. The crake runs superbly and quickly in dense thickets of grasses and bushes, through marshy muddy shallows, and amazingly deftly makes its way through the creases of reed thickets. It avoids open spaces of water, overcomes them by air, but in case of danger it can swim and even dive. In dense thickets of hard emergent vegetation it feels safe, stays noisy, gurgles with water, screams; in open places it is silent and at the slightest hint of danger hides in the thickets. Before going out to a clean place, he always looks around carefully, sticking his head out of the thickets. It overcomes open shallow waters by running quickly, from bush to bush. Curious, comes close to a person sitting motionless in the thickets, follows the noise when his hand gurgles in the water. In flight, it is characterized by a short neck and “rectangular” wings; it flies, like other cranes, clumsily, its long legs hanging heavily behind it. Having reached the thickets, the crake literally falls down and hides in them. Flies alone, even during migrations. During migrations, it flies quickly, straight, with its legs tucked to its abdomen. It rises from the ground easily, with a small jump. Sometimes it climbs clumsily along the inclined stems of reeds, cattails and branches of bushes, and flutters among them.

The voice of the crake is very characteristic and original. The mating cry sounds like a loud melodic whistle “Whee-Whee-Whee.” . .”, audible over 300-600 m, and in calm weather over 1-1.5 km, frequency up to 60-110 times per minute. The rest of the time it makes quiet calls “tew, tew, tew” or “duk, duk”, which maintain communication between partners and brood members, as well as with conspecific neighbors. In case of danger, a sharp, high-pitched, difficult to convey cry of “kiek, kick” or “kyuk” is heard. An antiphonal song has been established for this species - a duet between a male and a female. Each partner is characterized by only one type of song elements during duet singing; The male makes a loud, longer cry, the female makes a more gentle, quiet and short cry. Apparently, this type of song serves to maintain communication between partners, synchronize sexual rhythm and mark territory

It differs from other closely related species of crakes by its larger size, from the corncrake by its dark color, and from the water rail by its short conical beak.

Description. Coloring.

Female in breeding plumage. The coloration is very similar to the male, but the head and lower part of the body have more light or buffy spots and dots, the lower part of the body is more buffy, as well as the transverse stripes on its sides.

Male and female in winter plumage. The color resembles the breeding plumage, but is noticeably lighter, especially on the head and throat. There are no bluish-gray tones in the coloration of the head and neck. White spots are more distinct throughout the body, small contour feathers have light tips.

Downy chick. The overall color is solid black with a noticeable green metallic tint on the head, throat and upper body, with blue skin showing through on the head.

Nesting outfit. Similar to the winter plumage of adult birds, but the throat is light, the middle part of the chest and belly has an buffy tint, the sides of the chest and crop are brownish with numerous blurry white spots.

Intermediate outfit. It differs from the breeding plumage by the thick white fine speckling of the superciliary stripe and an abundance of white spots on the crop.

The iris in adult birds is from yellowish-brown to bright reddish-brown, in a downy chick it is gray or dark brown, in intermediate plumage it is olive or almost green. The bill of adults is yellow or yellow-green, with a darker tip and orange-red at the base, duller in late summer and autumn; in the downy chick, the mandible is red-yellow-black with a white tip, the mandible is black-ochre-white;

Structure and dimensions. There are 10 primaries. Wing length of males 108.5-119.9 (114.7), females 100.8-118.9 (111.6); beak of males 20.6-29.2 (23.5), females 19.9-26.0 (22.6); tarsus of males - 32-36 (32.6), females 30-35 (32); tail 44-51. Down jacket weight 7-7.5, adult birds: in spring 67-120 (96), in summer 70-120 (90), in autumn 60-130 (110). The wing appears short and slightly rounded. The legs are long with long toes.

Shedding. The sequence of changing outfits for a crake: downy nesting - intermediate - first winter (incomplete nuptial) - first nuptial (final) - winter.

The down outfit is formed by dense long soft down, which is replaced by feathers from the age of 12-15 days. The first stumps on the wings appear at the age of 15-20 days. The nesting plumage is mainly formed by 35-40 days of age. The nesting outfit is finally formed in early July

Subspecies. Monotypic species.

Spreading. Nesting area. Everywhere it is very sporadic, the certainty of nesting in many places has not been established due to the secrecy of its lifestyle. Distributed in Europe from Great Britain to the eastern limits and further east to the middle reaches of the river. Irkut. In the north it reaches 64° N. w. on the river Obi. In the south - sporadic in Spain,

Assessing the pattern of historical changes in the range over the past 100 years is complicated by the sporadic distribution and fluctuations in abundance characteristic of this species from year to year, depending on the water availability of the territory. However, in the central regions of European Russia it has clearly become rare in the last 30 years. So, in the river valley Yakhroma near the city

Wintering. The main wintering grounds are located in India, Pakistan and East Africa. It is known that individual birds winter in Western Europe in the countries of the North Sea and in southern Spain, in the Nile Delta, in Western and equatorial Africa. In the USSR, it regularly winters in small numbers in the southern regions: in Transcaucasia, in the south of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, in Crimea, in the northwestern Black Sea region near Odessa.

Seasonal movements. They have been poorly studied; only the timing of arrival and departure is known. Apparently, the birds fly in a wide front, concentrating in the deltas of large southern rivers and on large shallow reservoirs. The main directions in autumn are from south to southwest. Spring migration is universally late and coincides with significant warming (the transition of night temperatures above 0 °C). They arrive in Moldova in mid-April at night, apparently alone; in Crimea in 1959 they arrived in early April (April 3-6) and in May (May 12). In the vicinity of Kyiv they arrive on average on April 26 from April 16 to May 1). In Belarus they appear on April 13 - May 7, in the Leningrad region. the earliest date of appearance is May 1, mass arrival is the second ten days of May. In Kharkov region. arrives from

The beginning of autumn movements is associated with the time the young rise to the wing and the disintegration of broods and occurs at the beginning of August; flight ends in September - October; individual individuals linger in the south until December; single individuals spend the winter. The passage ends with the freezing of fresh inland water bodies. The crake flies away from Moldova

During migration, crakes stay solitary and rarely form loose aggregations (“rashes”) in favorable places. Flight occurs exclusively at night; some birds fly low from the ground, as evidenced by the finds of dead individuals under telegraph wires. With the onset of darkness, the crakes run out of the thickets onto the mudflats, behave animatedly, and in complete darkness they rise on the wing and fly away. For the day they stop before dawn in dense thickets of grasses and shrubs, often on land.

Habitat. During nesting time, crakes inhabit shallow water bodies overgrown with reeds, cattails, sedges, reed grass and shrubs in desert, semi-desert, steppe, forest-steppe and forest zones and in the mountains up to an altitude of 860-1120 m above sea level. m. in Altai and up to 1800-2420 m in the Caucasus. It penetrates far to the north along the valleys of large rivers. Basic nesting condition

Number. Taking into account the sporadic distribution of the species in general, in its habitats it is a common bird, rare at the northern and eastern borders of its range, in the mountains and deserts. Numerous in the steppe and forest-steppe zones. In the Kalinin region. There were 11 nests in a 4-hectare meadow. At the end of the 1970s. in the Kharovsky district of the Vologda region. in meadows per 1 hectare, an average of 0.1-1.5 individuals were found, in some places - up to 3 individuals, in the Taldomsky district of the Moscow region. - 0.5-0.8 individuals (V.T. Butyev, personal communication). Lots of data on Western Siberia. In the lake area Chans in a reed field near the river. Chulym at 1 km

Reproduction. The timing of reaching sexual maturity is unknown, but, judging by the time of appearance of the final breeding plumage, it occurs at the end of the first year, perhaps, in some birds, by the end of the second year of life. Monogamous. The formation of pairs occurs after arriving at nesting sites or at wintering sites, as paired flights into the air with elements of aggressive behavior are described there. At nesting sites, the male emits a sharp cry that attracts the female; perhaps unpaired males may search for females in flight. Duet singing is known in the resulting pairs. In mating ceremonies preceding mating, the female pursues the male on water, land or in flight. At this time they are quite silent. Only a faint chirping sound is known:

For nesting, the crake prefers densely overgrown shallow lakes of various sizes and types, fresh and slightly salty, stagnant and slightly flowing. Within the range, the nesting biotope is of the same type; nesting stations vary significantly. It equally readily inhabits dense thickets of reeds, cattails, lake reeds, sedges, reed grass, calamus, less commonly thickets of willows, young birches, alders and pine trees, sedge hummocks in coastal shallow waters, intra-lake and coastal rafts, unsteady floating waters, and damp meadows. Each pair occupies a nesting area ranging from 400-800 to 1200-2500 m

The crake usually places its nest on a small hummock in the middle of a damp meadow, on sedge hummocks, under creases in shallow waters and rafts, in clumps of vegetation. It is always well covered with side walls and a natural roof on top; In the absence of such a roof, the birds stretch and braid green leaves and stems over the nest. There are usually 1-2 passages leading to the nest - manholes through which the bird enters the nest; She climbs onto a high nest using a gangway, 200-400x80-150 mm in size, made of long stems. The nest is built by the female and the male from nearby dry stems and leaves of reeds, cattails, reed grass, sedges, with the addition of other plants. It is a small bowl with a deep tray and high walls. Nest dimensions (in mm): diameter 150-170, height 50-150, diameter 100-120 and tray depth 45-70, less often it has larger dimensions - nest diameter up to 180, tray depth up to 90. The base of the nest is built from long large stems , the tray is lined with small leaves. The size of the nest is determined by its location (nests on sedge hummocks are smaller than in shallow waters), the amount of building material available, the size of the clutch and the stage of nesting.

Egg laying in Moldova takes place in early May, chicks hatch in early June, but some pairs nest later, in the second half of May. In Crimea, at the end of May, a clutch of 6 weakly incubated eggs was discovered, and at the beginning of June, a nest left by chicks was discovered. In Belarus, nest construction begins from the end of April, egg laying occurs in the second half of May, and incubated clutches occur from the beginning of June to the end of July. All nests are in the Leningrad region. found in July, indicating late breeding periods. In May - June it nests in the central regions of Russia. In Western Siberia, egg laying begins in the middle - end of May, in Kazakhstan - in June - July. The earliest date of egg laying is April 24 (in Podolia), the last is in mid-July. Mass egg laying takes place at the end of May - the first half of June. The interval between egg laying is 24 hours; one egg is laid every day early in the morning. A full clutch consists of 8-21 eggs, but according to many researchers, clutches with more than 13 eggs are laid by two females. However, in a clutch of 21 eggs that we examined in Western Siberia, the eggs did not differ in size, shape and color and most likely belonged to the same female. Most clutches consist of 8 eggs, less often - 10-12, very rarely - 15-21 eggs. Average clutch size in the USSR (

Incubation begins with the laying of half the eggs, rarely with the second

Incubation duration is 18-24, on average 19 days. Chicks hatch asynchronously within 3-5, up to 8 days, but in small clutches they sometimes hatch simultaneously within 24 hours. The weight of the newborn chick is 7. Downy chicks appear in the second half of June

The chicks begin to flutter at the age of 25 days and become fully flightable at 35-42 days of age, according to other sources - at the age of 47-56 days. At the end of July-August they already fly well. Until this time, the broods stay within the nesting areas, maintaining communication with each other using calls. In rainy weather and at night, the grown chicks gather with their parents on a nest or hummock. The magnitude of nesting mortality (death of clutches and downy chicks) for the territory of the USSR is unknown. In Western Europe in southern Sweden, 45 chicks hatched from 53 eggs, 5 eggs were unfertilized, and 3 were “suffocated.” In Hungary, in Chakvar, out of 48 control clutches, 25 chicks hatched, 4 were unfertilized and 19 died, of which 13 were destroyed by water voles, 1

Daily activity, behavior. Crakes are active around the clock, with maximum activity occurring at night. Foraging is observed both during the day and at dusk and at night. Peaks of mating calls occur at 5-6 am and 21-22 pm. They migrate exclusively at night. They always sleep in a dry place, during nesting time on the nest, at other times they climb onto hummocks, snags, drifts and drifts among dense thickets. They often rest and sleep standing on one leg, with their neck pulled into their shoulders, or they turn their head to the side and tuck their beak into their shoulder feathers. According to observations in captivity, partners sleep pressed tightly against each other. The chicks spend the night under their parents. When there is significant cold, birds draw up their legs and lie down on their bellies.

The periods of rest and sleep are short, 5-20 minutes between phases of activity during the day. Outside the breeding season, crakes stay solitary, but in safe feeding areas they form “rash” type aggregations of 4-20 individuals or more. An individual distance of 1-3, up to 5-10 m is maintained between individual birds.

Crakes, including chicks, willingly and often swim in shallow waters, often sunbathe for a long time, ruffling their plumage and spreading their wings.

Nutrition . Food is obtained during nesting time within the nesting areas; at other times, they apparently also stick to individual areas. They feed especially willingly along the edge of the thickets, moving away on mud flats 5-10 m from the thickets. They obtain food from the surface of the ground, stems and leaves of plants, or by pecking it from the surface of the water. They are omnivores, feeding on a variety of invertebrates and aquatic plants. Among invertebrates, they mainly eat insects and their larvae, small mollusks; from plants - seeds and vegetative parts of plants, algae.

Enemies, unfavorable factors. Living in dense, hard-to-reach thickets with marshy soil, the crake rarely becomes prey to four-legged and feathered predators, from which it instantly takes refuge in the thickets. Sometimes unwary adult birds are caught by marsh harriers both in the nesting area and on migration. A significant number of them die during migration, crashing at night against the wires of electric and telegraph lines. During the nesting period, nests and clutches of crakes are sometimes accidentally destroyed by feathered predators (marsh harrier, hoodie and magpie), and in the south of Ukraine - raccoon dog, badger, fox, small mustelids (light polecat, ermine, weasel, weasel). However

Economic importance, protection. Formally, the crake belongs to the category of game bird species. However, there is no proper hunting for it; it is obtained by chance, incidentally when hunting waterfowl and swamp game, and in negligible quantities. As a hunting trophy it is not of particular value (low weight of the carcass, simplicity and “unsportsmanlike” prey, etc.). Does not require special security measures. But in a number of Western European countries it is included in the national red books and is endangered, the main reason for which is the reduction of suitable nesting sites.