Ocellé Léipoa

The léipoa ocellé ( Leipoa ocellata ) (in English: Malleefowl ) is an alive Australian bird on the ground, appreciably of the size of a domestic chicken.

Description

They are birds of the size of a 60 cm length chicken for a weight of two kilos for the female, 2,5 kg for the male. Their plumage is a scientist mixes of gray, brown, black and of white which, by their drawing to which they owe their name, enables them to be camouflaged easily in their habitat.

Zones of life and habitat

He lives the semi-arid garrigues eucalyptus and acacias buissonnants, with the limit of the relatively fertile zones of Australia of the South. At present, their zone of habitat is reduced to three distinct zones: the Basin of Murray - Murrumbidgee, west of the Gulf Spencer in edge of the Deserted Simpson and semi-arid limit of the south-western angle of the Western Australia.

Food

They have a varied food mode, nourishing various parts of plants but they prefer seeds, the fruits and the buds. A considerable part of their food comes from small animals found by scraping the ground.

Social life

They are apprehensive birds, being wary, recluses who fly only in case danger or to go to perch itself on a tree. Although very credits they are difficult to see because they are immobilized with the slightest warning, cash on their plumage to pass invisible or, sometimes, they can flee while running in silence towards the closest bushes.

The couples occupy the same territory but generally they are not nourished and do not sleep together; they are satisfied to remain in contact for the period of reproduction.

Reproduction

In winter, the male chooses a cleared zone of sandy ground, between the branches of several eucalypti, and digs sand with its legs to make a hole three meters in diameter and a meter of depth. At the end of the winter and at the beginning of spring, it starts to fill it with branches, sheets and barks collected with the surroundings and it then will build, above, a nest which will exceed ground of approximately sixty centimetres. The nature of the nest is very variable: only of plants, almost only out of sand or of a mixture in variable proportion of both. These nests were taken by the first explorers for tombs aboriginals!!!

After the storms, it mixes the plants to facilitate fermentation and if the conditions allow it, in August digs, at the end of the southern winter, a cavity to place eggs. The female the assistance sometimes to dig this niche and the planning of this work is function of the climatic conditions (temperature and precipitations). The female will lay between September and February according to precipitations. It waits to have the temperature wanted by a sufficient fermentation. During this time the male continues to deal with maintenance by taking the temperature of the nest with its nozzle and its language, adding regularly ground the morning as the summer is able to isolate it from the heat of the sun, releasing from the ground when fermentation packs to make drafts, cause a drop in the temperature and to slow down fermentation, all that to maintain the temperature constant (33°C with a margin of less than one degree) The males start to build their first nest (or give one from there in state) in their fourth year but do not build a structure as impressive as their groins. They will defend their nest during the nine months of the season of reproduction but will not return inevitably to the same nest the following year.

The female will lay, at the rate/rhythm of approximately one per week, after having controlled the temperature of the nest, a number of eggs which can be very variable according to the birds and precipitations: from 2 to 3 up to 30 with an average of 15 eggs by brooded. Each egg weighs approximately 10% of the weight of hen. After the laying, the male will dig gently the nest and delicately will push there egg until it is in the good position, then to cover it. The incubation period depends much on the temperature and can go from 50 to more than 100 days.

Let us oisillons use their powerful legs to break the shell then, putting themselves on the back, dig their way towards the exit, démenant themselves during five to ten minutes to gain three to fifteen centimetres before resting during one hour, then to resume their work. They thus need two to fifteen hours to leave the nest. Let us oisillons jump of the nest without precaution, eyes and nozzle still closed; there they open their eyes, aspire a great quantity of air before resting, motionless, a score of minutes.

Then they will be put moving and will take refuge in the nest in a few minutes. At the end of one hour they will be able to run about well; at the end of two hours to flutter and run perfectly, at the end of one day to fly away although they did not finish to acquire their plumage.

The chicks do not have any contact between them or with their parents; they are born with dates different from/to each other and are unaware of except being coupled or disputing a territory.

Protection

It is a species classified like vulnerable, in strong reduction since about fifty years from the reduction of its habitat and by the proliferation of predatory (cats and foxes in particular)

See too

External references

External bonds

malleefowl.com
gov.au
gov.au
on avibase
an English text on the temperature control of the nest.

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