Ordinary bluegrass: description, habitats, reproduction

Ordinary, blue or green azure is a small tit with a rich bluish-yellow plumage. The bird is widely distributed in the subarctic and temperate zone of North-West Africa, West Asia and Europe. It lives in the wild mainly in mixed and deciduous forests, especially in birch and oak. Perfectly adapts to cultivated landscapes and often settles in parks and gardens, where it can be found near feeders. It often forms urban populations in Europe. The bird is not shy and easily admits people to a close distance.

During breeding, it feeds mainly on animal feeds: spiders and insects. In winter and autumn, part of its diet is vegetable food, for example, seeds. Nests in hollows, as well as in artificial canons.

Description

A small tit with a thin short beak and a short tail is all an azure. Detailed information about it is provided in the article below. The size of the titmouse is much smaller than the tit, while it is slightly larger than the mosquito - its body length is about 12 cm and its weight is 14 g. Its coloring differs markedly from that of the other species of tits with a blue-azure cap, as well as thin dark blue strips along the beak - they Pass through the eyes, closing on the back of the head. The second dark blue strip goes around the neck, thereby forming a semblance of a collar.

Forehead and cheeks are white; Tail, wings and back of the head are bluish-blue. As a rule, the back is olive-green, but can have different shades, which depends on the habitat. Bottom of the bird is greenish-yellow, in the lower part there is a small longitudinal dark stripe. Gray-gray legs, black beak.

Areal

In Europe, the common azure is found in almost all countries, but is absent in the north of Scotland, Iceland, the Balkans and the highlands of the Alps, the northern parts of Russia and the Scandinavian Peninsula. Until 1963 she lived on the Outer Hebrides.

Lifestyle: blue blue azure

In the central and southern regions, the range is saddled, while in the winter in the north it migrates to the west and south. In addition, vertical flights in the mountains are possible. Irregular migration and depend in many respects on weather conditions and availability of feed. In addition, young birds that have not reached puberty are more prone to displacement than adults.

During the breeding season, they are always kept in pairs, mostly stray together in mixed flocks with long-tailed and large tits, ordinary pika and yellow-headed queen. In this case, the azure among them are distinguished by different somersaults on very thin branches.

Reproduction

Like the main number of small birds, the azure comes puberty one year from the moment of birth. Season of breeding in birds is at the end of spring, but mixed flocks of tits in the middle of January begin to disintegrate, after which they awaken territorial instincts.

The female in the middle of April starts independently to build her nest. Usually it is located in hollows and hollows of a tree, very often - with a narrow hole and very high from the ground. Periodically, the ordinary azure uses old nests of other birds.

Most often in the season she has 2 masonry, but in some regions (in Germany, Britain, Morocco, and also in Corsica) eggs are laid only once. Usually the first masonry is at the beginning of May, the next - on the 2nd half of June. The number of eggs depends on the maximum abundance and biotope.

Food

The main part of the diet of the bird is animal food. Most of them are small insects, reaching a length of 1 cm, their larvae, in addition, arachnids. The set of feeds is able to vary, which depends on their availability in this locality at a given time. At the very beginning of the breeding season, when all the trees are just beginning to be covered with greens and caterpillars or absent, or they are very small, the main part of its entire production is made up of spiders. In the event that the mass of caterpillars increases, the ordinary blue-tusk quickly switches to this type of production.

In huge quantities, various forest pests are destroyed by the bird, among them the hairy caterpillars of the silkworm, in addition, bedbugs, aphids and the remaining semi-feathery. For food, larvae of sawflies and butterfly caterpillars are used. Various flying insects (wasps, flies, nettles) are caught, ants, beetles, haymakers, various centipedes.

Subspecies and taxonomy

Ordinary bluegrass in 1758 was scientifically described by the famous Karl Linnaeus in the tenth book of his "System of Nature". At that moment, this species was named Parus caeruleus, and the birds were titmouses. The name Cyanistes then denoted the subgenus, where many species with similar morphological features were united. This classification is used up to the present moment by a number of specialists, including Russian ones.