Oatmeal garden: contents

Garden oatmeal is not very beautiful plumage, and singing it is not ideal. Nevertheless, it is highly appreciated by songbird lovers.

Next, we give a brief description. Garden porridge belongs to the family of oatmeal from the genus of real oatmeal. The class is small, contains only 37 varieties. The number of oatmeal garden in Europe is about 15 million pairs of individuals. The population of this species is constantly decreasing. In Belarus and in Lithuania it is listed in the Red Book.

Spread

The bird lives in many countries of Europe (except the British Isles) and Western Asia, and is found beyond the Arctic Circle. In the autumn time flies to Africa, its tropical part, for the winter. In late April and early May, returns to their native regions. Birds come in small flocks from 5 to 50 individuals. Places of residence of oatmeal garden are different in different areas of the range. In France they live wherever vineyards grow, in other countries they have never been seen on vineyards.

Oatmeal garden: description

The bird has a length of 16 cm, and weight from 20 to 25 g, the wingspan reaches 29 cm. Its appearance and behavior are similar to ordinary oatmeal, but the color is less colorful and the size is slightly smaller. The chest and head of the male are gray-green, the throat is yellow, the tail is white with stripes on the sides, around the eyes are light yellow rings and a reddish cone-shaped beak. The outfit of the young males is brownish, there are many pestrinas from above and from below, a stain on the throat is yellowish-buffy in color. They become like females when moulting ends.

Females are brown with a white bottom and yellow throat, the head is grayish, and the breast is mottled. They have a brown tadpole, a light, pinkish, non-long beak, white, slightly noticeable rings around the eyes. Young females and males have dark mottled patches on the sides and on the throat.

It should be noted that the garden, like ordinary oatmeal - a bird, the photo of which is higher, has a special beak structure. Both parts of it do not completely adhere to each other and a small gap is formed between them, which is absent in all other small-sized birds.

Lifestyle

Oatmeal garden lodges in open areas, with a small number of bushes and trees, at the forest's edges, in the steppes, on the shores of lakes and rivers, in small parks and in fruit gardens. Nests are on or near the ground. Females make small holes in the ground and cover them with dry stems of cereals, rootlets and other plant material. The bottom is laid with feathers or horsehair. The nests are oval or round, their diameter is from 8 to 12 cm.

Poultry live in pairs, their home is well camouflaged and located near hills and ravines. The nests are far from each other. Sometimes they settle for a while more densely, at a distance of two hundred meters between the nests. In the wild, garden oatmeal lives for a maximum of 8 years.

Reproduction

Oatmeal garden lays up to 6 eggs up to 2 cm long, having a shiny shell with a faintly blue hue, over which rare stains are scattered in the form of strokes and curls. Offspring are taken out once a year, the second clutch is done very rarely. Incubation lasts 12 days. The responsibility of the male is to protect the nest. He sits nearby on a branch and loudly sings songs, informing everyone that the given territory is occupied. The chicks appear in the light, covered with long down. It has a brown hue, on which dark longitudinal strips along the entire body are clearly visible. Kids stay in the nest for about two weeks. In the second half of June they learn to fly, to get their food and go to different places. When a person appears, the birds begin to worry greatly.

Food

Oatmeal garden feeds on seeds and sprouts of various plants. When feeding chicks, birds eat live food: beetles and other insects. Parents, both male and female, from the early morning until late at night carry a live food in the nest to saturate the offspring. Arriving at the nest, they sit next to each other and, making sure that there is no danger on the ground, they are selected to the dwelling. Young chicks for a long time circling around the nest before they fly into it. After the end of the harvest, the garden oatmeal moves closer to the fields and feeds on the seeds.

Singing

The oatmeal garden sings (photo below) intermittently and sonically. Her singing resembles the sound of an alarm bell. The songs are short, monotonous and compact, with an average duration of one and a half seconds. Each of them is separated by intervals of about 10 seconds. Any song consists of two parts:

• The first - cheerful and cheerful;
• The second is sad, sounding lower.

It happens that the songs consist only of the initial part without the finale. The singing ends with one or two syllables, and sometimes the ending is completely absent.

On the nesting site, their singing continues throughout the light day, most actively they sing from morning to 11 hours and after 15 hours of the day.

Males are most often flooded during breeding, taking off to the top of a coniferous tree, to a bush, to rocky ledges or other elevated places. They send their song to the height to the sky, guarding their body strictly in a vertical position.

The chanting is a bright characteristic sign of this type of oatmeal. Their songs consist of only a small number of syllables, the latter always lower than the previous one.

Oatmeal garden: content at home

Birds of this species on the nesting grounds appear much later than others, therefore in domestic cages in feathered birds are less common than oatmeal. It is difficult to get used to captivity, sometimes very interesting and quiet specimens are found.

Having a timid character, they are restlessly behaving in a cage both in the first days, and then a few more months. When they rush through the cage, they often damage wings and tails, dissect to the blood of foreheads and beaks, and sometimes, striking hard, they break to death. First time, the cells with oatmeal should be covered, and the wings tied. It is desirable to place the cell above the growth of a person and treat the bird carefully.

Observing the behavior of garden oatmeal in a cage, one can not but note their fearfulness. Calmly eat from the trough, like other birds, it can not. Always looking around, quickly jumps to the food, grabs a grain and then runs away. Oatmeal garden - a bird (photo above), in captivity feeding on a grain mixture, can peck a soft and lively fodder.

To tame the captured chick will require patience and a lot of hassle. Despite this, real hunters for singing birds appreciate the singing of garden oatmeal. And they sing a lot and beautiful, the whole day from dawn to dusk. Experts especially revere the night singers.

The enclosure can also be arranged in the open air by placing various kinds of oatmeal in it. Always be mindful of the timidity of birds. Suddenly disturbed, they can die to death on the grid. Approach the birds is very careful, do not make sudden movements, so as not to frighten them away.

Oatmeal garden with a close relation to it can become a domestic and domesticated bird. Experienced bird lovers do not recommend newcomers to keep cells at home with garden oats, as they require quality care and special living conditions. Adding vitamins and minerals to food will contribute to the health and liveliness of pets. For care they will thank with the rolling, ringing singing.

French cuisine

A delicatessen dish prepared by the French cook from garden oatmeal is called ortolan. The trapped birds are placed in small dark cells, where much food is poured. Darkness contributes to increased appetite, which leads to weight gain. After a while, the birds are drowned alive in brandy, plucked and the whole carcass is fried for a few minutes on high heat. Before eating, the dish and its head are covered with a napkin in order to enjoy the fragrance in full. The carcass with the bones is eaten entirely with the head and washed down with a delicacy of red wine.

This dish in France is trying to ban, but some cooks want to get permission to cook it once a year. In other countries of Europe it is forbidden to use garden oatmeal for eating.

Oatmeal is called garden, although it does not quite correspond to where it nests. Most often it can be found on wide fields with individual trees, on the branches of which she sings her sonorous songs.