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Digital Tobago |
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Digital Photography |
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By Bob Brent |
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I Home I Digital Photography I Wildlife I About/Contact I Site Map I |
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AVIFAUNA INDEX : |
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Avifauna A - Z :Blue - black Grassquit |
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Order : Passeriformes |
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Family : Finches (Fringillidae) |
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Name :Blue - black Grassquit (Volatinia jacarina) |
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Finches are seed eating Passerines mainly confined to the Northern Hemisphere, though some extend to South America. They are small to medium sized birds with a strong usually conical beak. Their flight is a bouncing alternate of flaps and glides on closed wings, and most sing well. There is some confusion over exactly which family the West Indian species belong, some Ornithologists placing them in the family Emberizidae. |
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Also known as Passerine’s or pearching bird’s. Any member of the largest avian order which includes more than 5,700 species, more than half of all living birds. Passerine’s are true perching birds with four toed feet, three toes facing forward and one larger toe facing backwards. |
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Length 10 - 12 cm ( 4 - 4½ in ) |
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Local Names : Blue-black seedeater, johnny jump-up |
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Similar to the Black-faced Grassquit, the Blue-black Grassquit is a bird of open countryside, scrub, grassland and garden. It is almost always seen near the ground where it feeds on grass seeds, or on a perch where it can be observed leaping into the air, spreading it’s wings and tail feathers in time to a musical call, before landing back onto it’s perch. This can be repeated for quite some time. The Male is a glossy blue-black all over, the female closer resembles the female Black-faced Grassquit, being a dull brown upperparts with pale brown underparts often streaked with black. |