Red-winged Tinamou
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| iRed-winged Tinamou | ||||||||||||||
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| Rhynchotus rufescens Temminck, 1815 |
The Red-winged Tinamou, Rhynchotus rufescens is a medium-sized ground-living bird from southern Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and northern Argentina. A large member of the Tinamou family, it has a curved bill and a black cap, with characteristic red primaries. Currently four subspecies are recognised, these can show quite striking differences in plumage.
The red-winged Tinamou lives in a variety of habitats depending on altitude, in lowland areas it favours marshy grasslands and savanna at higher altitudes more arid scruby areas. Its diet varies by season, taking insects and other small animals (even small mammals) in the summer, and switching to vegetable matter, such as fruits, shoots, tubers and bulbs, in the winter. It can be an agricultural pest, feeding on cereals, rice and peanuts, as well as being highly predatory, taking poisonous snakes and even jumping up into the air to snatch an insect off a leaf.
Like all tinamous, the Red-winged Tinamou is a popular target for hunters, and in areas of high human population density number have declined, but the species has also increased in some areas where forest clearance has created favourable habitat. Overall it is not considered threatened, but three subspecies, rufescens, pallescens, and maculicollis are listed as CITES II due to pressure from trade in live birds.
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2006). Rhynchotus rufescens. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006.
- del Hoyo,J., Elliot, A., Sargatal, J., eds (1992) Handbook of the Birds of the World, Volume One Ostritch to Ducks, ISBN 84-87334-10-5
