28 Spotted Wood Quail

Odontophorus guttatus (Gould) 1838 Other vernacular names: Bolonchaco, spotted partridge, thick-billed wood quail Range: Forested parts of the subtropical zone of southeastern Mexico south through Guatemala, British Honduras, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica to extreme western Panama

5 Reproductive Biology

The reproductive potentiaI of animal species is a compound result of numerous behavioral and physiological characteristics, most of which can be considered species-typical. These include such things as the time required to attain reproductive maturity, the number of nesting or renesting attempts per year once maturity is attained, the number of eggs laid per breeding attempt, and the number of years adults may remain reproductively active. These traits place an upper limit on the reproductive potential of a species, which is never actually attained. Rather, the actual rate of increase will only approach the reproductive potential, being limited by such things as the incidence of nonbreeding; the mortality rates of adults; decreased hatching success resulting from infertility, predation, or nest abandonment; relative rearing success; incidence of renesting and clutch sizes of renests; and similar factors that affect the reproductive efficiency. The relative involvement of the male in protecting the nest or the young may also influence hatching or rearing success. Among those species in which the male does not participate in nesting behavior, the relative degree of monogamy, polygamy, or promiscuity may strongly influence the reproductive ecology and population genetics of the species. Although many of these considerations will be treated under the accounts of the individual species, a general comparison of the grouse and quail groups as a whole are worth considering here, to see if any general trends can be detected

Index

Index of vernacular and scientific names English vernacular names indexed here are for the most part those used in this book for species or larger groupings. Vernacular names for subspecies as well as alternative vernacular names for species are included only if they are in general usage or have been referred to in the text discussions. Plates and figures are identified by number, and pages containing major discussions of each species are indicated by boldface. Scientific Names: Names indexed here are restricted to those of subspecies, species, or larger groupings of galIinaceous birds mentioned in the text. Technical names of other animal groups and plants are not indexed. Entries shown here are for the major page references; the index to vernacular names should be consulted for secondary references and references to illustrations

The North American Geese: Their Biology and Behavior

The eight currently recognized species of North American geese are part of a familiar group of birds collectively called waterfowl, all of which are smaller than swans and generally larger than ducks. They include the most popular of our aquatic gamebirds, with several million shot each year by sport hunters. Our two most abundant waterfowl, the Canada goose and snow goose, have populations collectively totaling about 15 million individuals. Like swans, the lifelong pairbonding of geese, their familial care, and prolonged social attachment to their offspring are legendary. Their seasonal migratory flights sometimes span thousands of miles, and the sight of their long, wavering flight formations are as much the symbols of seasonal change as are the spring songs of cardinals or the appearance of autumnal leaf colors. This book describes each species’ geographic range and subspecies, its identification traits, weights and measurements, and criteria for its age and sex determination. Ecological and behavioral information includes each species’ breeding and wintering habitats, its foods and foraging behavior, its local and long distance movements, and its relationships with other species. Reproductive information includes each species’ age of maturity, pair-bond pattern, pair-forming behaviors, usual clutch sizes and incubation periods, brooding behavior, and postbreeding behavior. Mortality sources and rates of egg, young, and adult losses are also summarized, and each species’ past and current North American populations are estimated. In addition to a text of nearly 60,000 words, the book includes 8 maps, 21 line drawings, and 28 photographs by the author, as well as more than 700 literature citations.https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeabook/1043/thumbnail.jp

Birds of the Great Plains: Family Anhingidae (Anhingas)

Anhing

In Explorers\u27 Footsteps: You can find nearly all the birds documented by Lewis and Clark in great refuges on the Great Plains

Two hundred years ago this May, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, together with the three dozen army volunteers and hired hunter-interpreters who made up the Corps of Discovery, departed their winter camp at the mouth of the Missouri River, north of St. Louis, Missouri, and set out to make history. President Thomas Jefferson had charged them with the monumental task of exploring the unknown lands of the Louisiana Territory, purchased from France the year before, and trying to find a navigable route to the Pacific Ocean via the Missouri River. The explorers were also asked to make extensive geological, geographic, anthropological, and biological observations. Their biological duties included the collection of both plant and animal materials, with special consideration to the discovery of possibly medicinally important plants and economically valuable animals. After breaking winter camp, the group took five weeks to travel 300 miles to the mouth of the Kansas River, the future site of Kansas City. By then, they were in true wilderness and began to see many unfamiliar birds and mammals. Through the summer they gradually worked northward, and in late October they reached what is now western North Dakota. There they built Fort Mandan and prepared to endure a long winter prior to heading farther upstream, and farther west, in 1805. The five-month, 2,000-mile trip made by the Corps of Discovery in 1804 can now be made in a car in only a few days. Very few stretches of the middle Missouri River even remotely approach the ecological conditions that it exhibited two centuries ago, yet nearly all the birds and mammals that Lewis and Clark documented in 1804 still exist. The Carolina Parakeet and the Passenger Pigeon, seen later during the expedition in present-day Montana but now extinct, are the sad exceptions. Many refuges, state parks, and historic sites provide birding opportunities to tourists wanting to trace the explorers’ steps two centuries later. Fort Randall Dam, Mound City, Missouri, Pollock, South Dakota Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge, DeSoto National Wildlife Refuge, Karl E. Mundt and Lake Andes National Wildlife Refuge Complex, Pocasse National Wildlife Refuge, Audubon National Wildlife Refuge, Knife River Indian Villages National Historical Site, Cross Ranch State Park and Nature Preserve, Lake Ilo National Wildlife Refuge, Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge Bald Eagles, Snow Geese, Whip-poor-wills, Carolina Parakeets, Ruffed Grouse, pronghorn, white-tailed jackrabbit, Sharp-tailed Grouse, Greater Prairie-Chickens, Whooping Cranes, Common Raven, Long-billed Curlew, Bobolinks, Clay-colored Sparrows, Common Poorwill, Baird’s Sparrow, LeConte’s Sparrow, Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Sprague’s Pipit, Marbled Godwit, Canada Geese, Common Nighthawk, Great Horned Owl, Baltimore Oriole, House Wren, and Least Flycatcher John Colter, Sacagawea, Sakakawea, Touissaint Charbonneau

Birds of the Great Plains: Family Rallidae (Rails, Gallinules, and Coots)

King Rail Virginia Rail Sora Yellow Rail Black Rail Purple Gallinule Common Gallinule (Moorhen) American Coo

Birds of the Great Plains: Family Picidae (Woodpeckers)

Common Flicker (Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted Flickers) Pileated Woodpecker Red-bellied Woodpecker Golden -fronted Woodpecker Red-headed Woodpecker Lewis Woodpecker Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Hairy Woodpecker Downy Woodpecker Ladder-backed Woodpecker Red-cockaded Woodpecker Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker Northern Three-toed Woodpecke

Waterfowl of North America: Name Derivations

Excluding extralimital species and most subspecies unless these are sometimes considered full species. Aix [through] Spatul

Birds of the Great Plains: Family CincIidae (Dippers)

Dippe