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Philomachus pugnax

(reeve)

Overview

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Interesting Facts

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Common Names

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Click on the language to view common names.

Common Names in Dutch:

Kemphaan

Common Names in English:

reeve, Ruff

Common Names in Finnish:

suokukko

Common Names in French:

Chevalier combattant, Combatant Vari, combatant varié, combatant varié, Combattant varié

Common Names in German:

Kampfläufer

Common Names in Hebrew:

לוחם

Common Names in Italian:

Combattente

Common Names in Japanese:

エリマキシギ

Common Names in Russian:

Turukhtan, Турухтан

Common Names in Spanish:

Combatiente

Common Names in Swedish:

Brushane

Description

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Physical Description

Adult : Bill: Shape : heavy Body: Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump : dark center Shape: thickset.Adult Female: Bill: Shape: heavy Body: Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: dark center Shape: thickset.Adult Female Breeding Season : Bill: black with purple or yellow base Shape: heavy Neck: Foreneck: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Throat : whitish Body: Belly: white Breast: bright buff, mottled with dusky Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: sides white Shape: thickset Upperparts: dark brown, feathers edged with golden-buff Legs : Leg Color: pink to red-orange Wings : Remiges : dusky Tail: gray-brown.Adult Female Summer: Body: Breast: mottled black Flanks: mottled black Upperparts: grayish brown mottled black with buff white edging.Adult Male: Bill: Shape: heavy Body: Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: dark center Shape: thickset.Adult Male Breeding Season: Head : conspicuous , variously colored head-tufts Bill: black with purple or yellow base Shape: heavy Neck: Foreneck: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Throat: whitish Body: Belly: white Breast: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: sides white Shape: thickset Upperparts: gray-brown, feathers with whitish margins Legs: Leg Color: pink to red-orange Wings: Remiges: dusky Tail: gray-brown.Adult Male Summer: Head: Size: small Face : Wattles: red, greenish, yellowish, or orange facial warts and wattles Bill: Curvature: slightly decurved Length : short Body: Mantle: chestnut to black Shape: plump Upperparts: white with multicolored barring Legs: Leg Color: yellow, orange, or red Wings: Tertial Stripe : chestnut to black.Adult Winter: Bill: black with purple or yellow base Shape: heavy Neck: Foreneck: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Throat: whitish Body: Belly: white Breast: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: sides white Shape: thickset Upperparts: gray-brown, feathers with whitish margins Legs: Leg Color: pink to red-orange Wings: Remiges: dusky Tail: gray-brown.Immature: Bill: black with purple or yellow base Shape: heavy Neck: Foreneck: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Throat: whitish Body: Belly: white Breast: pale grayish-buff marked with dusky Mantle: buff-edged feathers Rump: sides white Shape: thickset Upperparts: gray-brown, feathers with whitish margins Legs: Leg Color: green to brown Wings: Remiges: dusky Tail: gray-brown.

Size/Age/Growth

About 9 to 12.5 inches long, with a wingspan of 16 to 25 inches. Adults weigh about 6 ounces .

Habitat

Vegetation: freshwater marshes, saltwater and brackish marshes, arid lowland scrubs, pastures and agricultural lands • Sensitivity to Disturbance: Low

Typically found in a lake at a mean distance from sea level of 979 meters (3,212 feet).[1]

Ecology: This species is fully migratory and travels on a broad front across Europe (del Hoyo et al. 1996). It breeds from May to August (Hayman et al. 1986) with males gathering in suitable lekking areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Flint et al. 1984) and females nesting solitarily or in semi-colonial groups (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species departs the breeding grounds between late-June and August, returning from the wintering grounds from March to mid-May (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species migrates in large flocks of hundreds or thousands of individuals (del Hoyo et al. 1996) and forms huge dense groups on its wintering grounds (Hayman et al. 1986). The species inhabits tundra habitats from the coast to the Arctic treeline (Johnsgard et al. 1981, del Hoyo et al. 1996) during the breeding season , requiring adjacent foraging , lekking and nesting areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996). It shows a preference for dry mounds and slopes with low willow Salix spp. and dwarf birch Betula spp. as lekking areas (del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), and dry patches of tall sedge as nesting sites (Snow and Perrins 1998). Suitable foraging habitats include littoral belts , deltas (Snow and Perrins 1998), coastal saltmarshes (Johnsgard et al. 1981) and extensive lowland freshwater wetlands such as small shallow lakes with marginal vegetation (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), grassy hummocky marshes (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996, Snow and Perrins 1998), and damp swampy grasslands (Johnsgard et al. 1981, Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996), with shallow pools or ditches (del Hoyo et al. 1996). During the non-breeding season the species occupies the muddy margins of brackish , saline and alkaline lakes, ponds , pools, rivers , marshes and food-plains (del Hoyo et al. 1996), as well as freshly mown or grazed short-sward grasslands (Hayman et al. 1986, del Hoyo et al. 1996) and wheat- or rice-fields (del Hoyo et al. 1996), usually roosting at night in the shallow waters of lake shores (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The species rarely utilises intertidal habitats (Hayman et al. 1986) but may frequent tidal mudflats and lagoons in India (del Hoyo et al. 1996). During the breeding season the species's diet consists almost entirely of adult and larval terrestrial and aquatic insects such as Coleoptera and Diptera (del Hoyo et al. 1996). On passage and during the winter the species takes insects (e.g. caddisflies, water-bugs, mayflies and grasshoppers), small crustaceans, spiders, small molluscs , annelid worms, frogs , small fish and the seeds of rice and other cereals, sedges, grasses and aquatic plants (del Hoyo et al. 1996). The nest is a shallow scrape (del Hoyo et al. 1996) concealed in marsh vegetation or meadow grass (del Hoyo et al. 1996) on damp ground (Johnsgard et al. 1981) usually more than 100 m away from the nearest lek site (Johnsgard et al. 1981). The species nests solitarily or semi-colonially, neighbouring nests occasionally only a few metres apart (del Hoyo et al. 1996). Management information Intensive grazing of grassland (> 1 cow per hectare ) was found to attract a higher abundance of this species in Hungary (Baldi et al. 2005).[2].

List of Habitats:

Biology

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Migration

Migratory

Taxonomy

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Synonyms

Philomachus pugnax (Linnaeus, 1758)

Notes

Name Status: Accepted Name .

Last scrutiny: 17-Oct-2001

Similar Species

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Pectoral Sandpiper, Upland Sandpiper

Members of the genus Philomachus

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 1 species and subspecies in this genus:

P. pugnax (Reeve)

More Info

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Further Reading

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Notes

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Contributors

Data Sources

Accessed through GBIF Data Portal November 12, 2007:

Identifiers

Footnotes

  1. Standard Deviation = 536.560 based on 5,744 observations. Altitude information for each observation from British Oceanographic Data Centre. [back]
  2. BirdLife International 2009. Philomachus pugnax. In: IUCN 2011. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2011.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 03 February 2012. [back]
Last Revised: 7/14/2012