Little Bustard, also known as Little Bustard in English, is a large bird of the family Bustard, with no subspecies.
Little Bustards often gather in large groups during the non-breeding season, sometimes up to several thousand, and are active during the day. Male birds in the wintering group have collective display behaviors and confrontation and fighting behaviors with other male birds. It is timid but alert, and will run away or hide immediately when it senses danger.
The little bustard is an omnivorous animal, mainly eating plants and invertebrates, but mainly plants, including tender stems, leaves, flowers, grains and tender grass, and also eats rapeseed and turnip leaves and flowers; invertebrates mainly include snails, annelids and various insects, such as beetles, grasshoppers, crickets, mole crickets, locusts, etc. Vertebrate food includes small frogs and voles, and the chicks mainly eat grasshoppers.
The courtship call of the little bustard is a dry, long-lasting prrt sound. When flying, the fourth primary flight feather can produce a whistle sound.
Little Bustards like to build nests in remote and open grasslands. Most nests are built on the ground in the grass. Usually, natural pits on the ground are used, or the parents dig a pit themselves and put some dead grass inside.
Female birds begin to breed at 1-2 years old, while male birds cannot breed until they are 2 years old. The breeding season of Little Bustards in Xinjiang is from April to May. After the male bird occupies the territory for a few weeks, it begins to pair up. There are two types of pairing relationships: single pairing and multiple pairing (2-3 female birds). The territory area is 4-6 square kilometers, but not less than 1 square kilometer, and the distance between nests is 200 meters. When the male bird is courting, it erects its neck feathers and spreads its tail feathers, circling around the female bird lying flat on the ground. The male bird is also seen dragging its wings when courting. Usually, shallow pits on the ground or surrounding plants are stepped into the pits as nests. The female builds the nest and incubates the eggs. Each nest lays 3-4 eggs (range 2-6 eggs), and can lay a second nest of eggs. The eggs are short and oval, smooth and shiny, olive brown or olive green, with dense dark brown spots and stripes. The incubation period is 20-22 days. The chicks hatch at the same time, and they are precocial birds. They can leave the nest soon after hatching and are cared for and fed by the female bird. They can find food on their own at 5 days old, grow flight feathers at 20-30 days old, and are similar to adult birds at 50-55 days old. The young birds spend their first winter with the female bird.
The distribution area of the Little Bustard has not only shrunk significantly worldwide, but the population has also dropped sharply, mainly due to the destruction of the Little Bustard's habitat and the reduction of its distribution area due to grassland reclamation and overgrazing. As a breeding bird, it has been extinct in Algeria, Tunisia, Greece, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria. In some other countries such as Morocco, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Turkey, Iran and Russia, the population is also declining. The population in Xinjiang, China is also very rare.
The endangered factors are habitat destruction, over-cultivation of grasslands and overgrazing, which have caused the little bustard to lose its suitable habitat. Environmental pollution, the use of agricultural machinery and pesticides directly threaten the little bustard, young bustards and bustard eggs during the breeding period. Intraspecific biological characteristics, because the little bustard nests on the ground, the eggs are easily damaged by humans and other animals, which increases the loss of eggs in the nest and causes a decrease in the number.
Listed in Appendix I, II and III of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) 2019 Edition Appendix II.
Listed in the 2018 ver3.1 of the World Conservation Union Red List of Threatened Species (IUCN) - Near Threatened (NT).
Listed in the first level of the List of National Key Protected Wildlife in China.
Protect wildlife and eliminate game.
Maintaining ecological balance is everyone's responsibility!
Similar Animals
The Reunion pigeon (Threskiornis solitarius), also known as the Reunion dodo, is an extinct species endemic to the Reunion. They may be the same species of dodo (Raphus solitarius) discovered by Portuguese sailors in 1613.The Reunion pigeon was first described by Edmund de Selys-Longchamps in 1848,...
The Arctic tern is a seabird belonging to the tern genus. It is medium-sized and distributed in the Arctic and nearby areas. It is a migratory bird. It experiences two summers each year, migrating from its northern breeding area to the ocean near Antarctica, and then migrating back to the breeding a...
Egrets are a general term for medium-sized wading birds of the genus Egretta. There are 13 species of birds in the genus Egretta, including the great egret, the middle egret, the little egret and the yellow-billed egret, all of which have all-white feathers and are commonly called "egrets"...
Spoon-billed Sandpiper breeds in the tundra, and is more common in coastal wetlands during migration and wintering. If the first clutch of eggs is lost in the early breeding period, a second clutch of eggs will be laid, so conservationists are allowed to collect the first clutch of eggs for artifici...
The black-crowned bittern, commonly known as the black-crowned bittern, lives in tropical and subtropical areas in southern and southeastern Asia. Its habitat and activity habits are basically similar to those of the Hainan bittern. In Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province, it is mostly found alone in rice...
The Chinese Egret is a medium-sized wading bird with no subspecies.The Chinese Egret has the habit of nesting in groups, repairing old nests, and breeding in mixed groups with pond herons, night herons, and cattle egrets. It can fly to the breeding grounds in late April and lay eggs in May, with 2-5...
Pacific Reef-egret is a medium-sized wading bird with two subspecies.Pacific Reef-egret is a species with a high sense of territory. Most of them move alone, sometimes in pairs or in small groups as a family unit, occupying a small reef or coast. It usually only appears on rocky shores, often standi...
White-bellied Heron is a large migratory wading bird with no subspecies.White-bellied Heron is a migratory species. It often moves alone or in small groups of 4-5. It is timid and alert, and will fly away when it sees people. Although the flapping of its wings is slow during flight, the speed is ver...
Email: jsset#163.com (change # to @) Please indicate your purpose of visit! Guangdong ICP No. 2022053326 XML| map| Chinese
