The blackish cinclodes (''Cinclodes antarcticus'') is a

Near Threatened A near-threatened species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized as "Near Threatened" (NT) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as that may be vulnerable to Endangered species, endangerment in the ne ...

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Furnariidae. It is found on

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South America, South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main is ...

and the

Falkland Islands The Falkland Islands (; ), commonly referred to as The Falklands, is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf. The principal islands are about east of South America's southern Patagonian coast and from Cape Dub ...

, where it is known as the tussac-bird or tussock-bird.

Taxonomy and systematics

The blackish cinclodes' taxonomy is unsettled. The

International Ornithological Committee The International Ornithologists' Union (IOU) is an international organization for the promotion of ornithology. It links basic and applied research and nurtures education and outreach activities. Specifically, the IOU organizes and funds global co ...

and the

Clements taxonomy ''The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World'' is a book by Jim Clements which presents a list of the bird species of the world. The most recent printed version is the sixth edition (2007), but has been updated yearly, the last version in 202 ...

assign it two subspecies, the nominate ''C. a. antarcticus'' ( Garnot, 1826) and ''C. a. maculirostris'' ( Dabbene, 1917.Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, S. M. Billerman, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2022. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2022. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/ retrieved November 10, 2022

BirdLife International BirdLife International is a global partnership of non-governmental organizations that strives to conserve birds and their habitats. BirdLife International's priorities include preventing extinction of bird species, identifying and safeguarding i ...

's ''

Handbook of the Birds of the World The ''Handbook of the Birds of the World'' (HBW) is a multi-volume series produced by the Spanish publishing house Lynx Edicions in partnership with BirdLife International. It is the first handbook to cover every known living species of bird. ...

'' (HBW) treats the two taxa as separate species, retaining "blackish cinclodes" for ''antarcticus'' and calling ''maculirostris'' the "black cinclodes".HBW and BirdLife International (2022) Handbook of the Birds of the World and BirdLife International digital checklist of the birds of the world. Version 7. Available at: https://datazone.birdlife.org/userfiles/file/Species/Taxonomy/HBW-BirdLife_Checklist_v7_Dec22.zip retrieved December 13, 2022 This article follows the one-species, two-subspecies, model.

Description

The blackish cinclodes is long and weighs about . The sexes have the same plumage. Adults of the nominate subspecies are mostly dark sooty brown, with a slightly paler throat and some dull rufous on the base of the flight feathers. The last is usually visible only in flight. Its iris is dark brown, its bill blackish, and its legs and feet blackish. Juveniles are generally browner than adults. Subspecies ''C. a. maculirostris'' is slightly larger than the nominate with a shorter bill and longer tail, and is blacker overall with a visibly yellowish base to its bill and no rufous on its wings.del Hoyo, J., J. V. Remsen, Jr., G. M. Kirwan, and N. Collar (2022). Blackish Cinclodes (''Cinclodes antarcticus''), version 1.1. In Birds of the World (N. D. Sly, Editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.blacin1.01.1 retrieved September 3, 2023

Distribution and habitat

The nominate subspecies of the blackish cinclodes is found on the Falkland Islands. Surveys through the late 1990s found them on 40 of the 59 islands studied.Hall, J.R., Woods, R.W., Brooke, M.L. and Hilton, G.M. (2002). Factors affecting the distribution of landbirds on the Falkland Islands. Bird Conservation International. 12(2): 151–167. Subspecies ''C. a. maculirostris'' is found in southernmost mainland Chile, both Chilean and Argentine Tierra del Fuego, and other islands in the

Cape Horn Cape Horn (, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which is Águila Islet), Cape Horn marks the nor ...

Archipelago. The blackish cinclodes is primarily coastal though it does range as far inland as . It favors landscapes of short grass and tussoc (tussock) grass '' Poa flabellata'', and is also common around human habitations. Both subspecies are often found on rocky beaches near colonies of marine mammals and seabirds. In elevation they range from sea level to about .

Behavior

General

The blackish cinclodes is often very tame and will approach humans and their habitations, especially in the Falklands.

Movement

The blackish cinclodes is a year-round resident throughout its range.

Feeding

The blackish cinclodes feeds mainly on small

invertebrate Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordata, chordate s ...

s such as

amphipod Amphipoda () is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods () range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 10,700 amphipod species cur ...

isopod Isopoda is an Order (biology), order of crustaceans. Members of this group are called isopods and include both Aquatic animal, aquatic species and Terrestrial animal, terrestrial species such as woodlice. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons ...

s, flies, and

Orthoptera Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – gras ...

. Among seabird colonies it feeds on cracked eggs, scraps, and regurgitated matter, and also takes prey from excrement. It has also been documented feeding at wounds on southern elephant seals (''

Mirounga leonina The southern elephant seal (''Mirounga leonina'') is one of two species of elephant seals. It is the largest member of the clade Pinnipedia and the order Carnivora, as well as the largest extant marine mammal that is not a cetacean. It gets its ...

'') and sometimes enters houses to take food crumbs and scraps. On and near beaches it gleans and probes for prey, especially in floating and washed up kelp. It leaps up to capture flies in mid-air and follows humans along beaches to capture what they disturb.

Breeding

Most of the data on the blackish cinclodes' breeding biology comes from the nominate subspecies on the Falklands. Their breeding season lasts from September to January and two broods are often raised. Subspecies ''C. a. maculirostris'' appears to have a similar nesting season. Both subspecies nest in a tunnel in an earthen bank or in a rock crevice. The nominate is also known to nest in abandoned seabird burrows and under buildings. Both subspecies line the nest chamber with grass and feathers. The clutch size is two or three eggs. In the Falklands the incubation period is about 16 days, fledging occurs about 25 days after hatch, and both adults care for the young.

Vocalization

All of the recordings of blackish cinclodes vocalizations in

xeno-canto xeno-canto is a citizen science project and repository in which volunteers record, upload and annotate recordings of bird calls and sounds of orthoptera and bats. Since it began in 2005, it has collected over 575,000 sound recordings from more th ...

and the

Cornell Lab of Ornithology The Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a member-supported unit of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, which studies birds and other wildlife. It is housed in the Imogene Powers Johnson Center for Birds and Biodiversity in Sapsucker Woods Sanctuar ...

Macaulay Library The Macaulay Library is the world's largest archive of animal media. It includes more than 71 million photographs, 2.6 million audio recordings, and over three hundred thousand videos covering 96 percent of the world's bird species. There are an ev ...

are from the Falkland Islands. The song is "a long series of sharp, explosive notes intermixed with musical trills...described as tittering ''chee-chee-chee-chee-cheecheecheecheecheechee-chee''". The species sometimes sings during a flight display that ends with a dive to the ground, an occasionally sings for several minutes on the ground. Its call is "a short, sharp ''chip''" that is sometimes extended into a trill.

Status

The

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

follows HBW taxonomy and so has separately assessed the two subspecies of blackish cinclodes. Both are considered Near Threatened. The size of the nominate "blackish" population on the Falkland Islands is not known and is believed to be decreasing. The population of the "black" ''C. a. maculirostris'' is estimated at 3000 to 19,000 mature individuals and is also believed to be decreasing. Both are extremely vulnerable to predation by introduced cats and rats and are generally found only where they are absent. Some previously affected small islands in the Falklands have been cleared of land predators and populations on them appear to be more stable. The species occurs in only a few formally protected areas.

References

External links

* {{Taxonbar, from=Q995834

blackish cinclodes The blackish cinclodes (''Cinclodes antarcticus'') is a Near Threatened passerine bird in the Furnariinae subfamily of the ovenbird family Furnariidae. It is found on Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands, where it is known as the tussac-b ...

Birds of the Falkland Islands Birds of Tierra del Fuego

Taxonomy and systematics

Description

Distribution and habitat

Behavior

General

Movement

Feeding

Breeding

Vocalization

Status

References

Further reading

External links