Black-billed Capercaillie - BirdForum Opus

Photo by zhangyong
Location: Heilongjiang, China, July 2006

Tetrao urogalloides

Identification

Male is mostly black, large white spots at the tips of uppertail coverts and wings.
Female is greyer than the western species with more uniformly scaled underparts, and has more noticeable white spots on wings.

Similar Species

Western Capercaillie

Distribution

Eastern Russia, Mongolia and China.

Taxonomy

The scientific name was formerly parvirostris but urogalloides has precedence.

Subspecies^[1]

There are 3 subspecies:

• T. u. urogalloides:

• Eastern Siberia to northern Manchuria, Ussuriland and Sakhalin Island

• T. u. kamtschaticus:

• Kamchatka Peninsula

• T. u. stegmanni:

• Lake Baikal region, Sayan Mountains and n Mongolia

Habitat

Larch taiga forest in lowland and mountainous areas and montane forests.

Behaviour

Diet

The diet includes larch, birch twigs, shoots and rosehips in winter. During spring and summer, a wide variety of herbs, grasses and invertebrates are eaten; ericaceous shrubs being a major constituent of their diet.

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2014. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: Version 6.9., with updates to August 2014. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Wikipedia
3. www.gct.org.uk

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Black-billed Capercaillie. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 26 April 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Black-billed_Capercaillie

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