Vertebrates and anti-billed sandpipers
Recurvirostra avosetta
Regurgitated sandpiper, belonging to the vertebrates, ornithischia, order Plover, regurgitated sandpiper family, anti-billed sandpiper genus. It is a migratory bird that is migratory and often inhabits lakes, ponds and swamps, or on the seashore and saline swamps, sometimes near artificial rice fields or fish ponds. It is distributed in many parts of the country. Photo taken in the Napa Sea.
As a small and medium-sized waterfowl, the anti-billed sandpiper is not very large, its body length is about 40 cm, and its weight is more than 300 grams. Usually, it is mostly foraged in single or pairs, but in the process of migration, it is extremely united, and it is common to find hundreds or even tens of thousands of large groups.
The body color of the anti-billed sandpiper is simple and clear, mainly black, white and gray. Among them, its mouth and forehead extend to the back of the neck are black, the wings have black arc lines, the wing tips feathers are also black, the legs are longer and appear gray or bluish gray, and the feathers on other parts of the body are white. The body color of young birds is very similar to that of adult birds, the main difference is that the black part is light, mostly gray-brown, and the white feather part will be mixed with gray-brown or skin-yellow spots.
Common waterfowl such as red-crowned cranes, black-necked cranes, egrets and other beaks are slender and conical, but the beak of the anti-billed sandpiper is unique in shape, which is a long and upward beak with a certain curvature. However, this funny beak is not meant to make anyone laugh or be out of tune, but has evolved to adapt to a particular recipe.
Unlike most aquatic birds that catch fish and shrimp, the regurgitated sandpiper feeds on invertebrates such as crustaceans, aquatic insects and their larvae, worms and mollusks that hide in sediment underwater. To capture these foods, its mouth has evolved a curvature that allows it to dig up food in the sediment like a sand digging boat.
The most interesting thing is that there is a Chinese idiom called "sandpiper-mussel competition", which tells the story of the sandpiper who wants to eat the meat of the mussel, and the mussel clamps the beak of the sandpiper in order to survive, and the fisherman takes the opportunity to cast a net to catch both of them. The idiom vividly compares a situation in which two disputes are bound to cause both sides to lose, and the third party will benefit. In fact, this may be the worst time in thousands of years that sandpipers have been wronged. The sandpiper originally fed on invertebrates, and its diet included mussels, so the real situation is likely that it was caught by fishermen in the process of predation.
Yang Tao, a natural ecology photographer, won the second prize in the plant and fungus category of the 2020 China Wildlife Photography Annual Competition. Over the years, he has been paying attention to and photographing the biodiversity of the Hengduan Mountain area, and is committed to interpreting the beauty of nature and ecology with the lens, arousing the emotional resonance of the viewer with the discovery vision, and promoting nature conservation with the power of images.
Open the treasure house of biodiversity, let Yunnan go to the world, let the world know Yunnan! We are also eagerly looking forward to your participation, if you have taken wonderful species photos in Yunnan, welcome to submit, once hired, the contribution fee is excellent.
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