AVIS-IBIS

Birds of Indian Subcontinent

323. Aetinodura egertoni ripponi

(323) ACTINODURA EGERTONI RIPPONI OGILVIE-GRANT.
THE CHIN HILLS BAR-WING.
Actinodura egertoni ripponi, Fauna B. I., Birds, 2nd ed. vol. i, p. 305.
This Bar-wing is not uncommon in the Chin Hills and North. Kachin Hills over 5,000 feet, and both Harington and Grant obtained it in the Bhamo Hills near Sinlum Kaba at about 5,500 feet.
In the Bhamo Hills it apparently frequents light forest, small patches of heavier forest in between grass-lands and cultivation and, less often, bushes and saplings in more or less open country on the outskirts of the larger forests.
Harington, who first found this bird’s nest, writes about it as follows :—
“I found a nest of this bird building and saw both birds, but returning when I expected to find eggs I found something had been before me. The nest was placed in a small sapling in rather a conspicuous position and, so far as I could see, was composed chiefly of moss. My Burman collector was, however, more fortunate in getting two nests at the end of April, with the parent birds, each containing two incubated eggs. Both were placed in bamboos and were deep cups having a mossy foundation and composed of bamboo leaves and roots, lined with fine grass, and measured 4" x 5" outside and 2.1/2" x 2.1/4" (deep) inside.
“Eggs are very handsome, being a bright blue, spotted and marked with lines of brown, and have indistinct underlying purplish markings ; they measure .9' x .66" (=22.4 x 16.6 mm.).”
Mr. F. Grant took several nests of this species within a five-mile radius of Sinlum Kaba, between 5,000 and 6,000 feet, of which he has kindly sent me three clutches. Grant also found two eggs to be the full clutch, and in one nest found a single egg partly incubated. Mackenzie, on the other hand, in the Chin Hills, where he found this Bar-wing breeding numerously above 5,000 feet, twice took three eggs from a nest.
He, Mackenzie, describes the nest as being very similar to those found by Harington and Grant:— “The nest is rather large, but is carefully made of roots, grass-stems etc. ; these are surrounded by bamboo-leaves and moss, the whole carefully moulded. The lining is generally of fine moss-roots.”
It is remarkable that Mackenzie found his nests in the Chin Hills built in low bushes. In one he gives the height at which it was from the ground as only 3' 8".
They are extraordinarily regular in their laying season ; out of the whole series collected by Harington, Grant, Mackenzie and Hopwood, with one exception every clutch was taken between the 19th and the end of April, the one exception being taken on the 10th May.
The eggs differ in no way from those of the two preceding sub¬species but the ten clutches given me by various collectors show very little variation, all being of the type described as normal for the species.
The average of thirty eggs—all that have been taken, I believe, so far—is 22.6 x 17.4 mm. : maxima 24.3 x 18.1 and 24.0 x 18.8 mm. ; minima 20.2 x 16.0 and 20.3 x 15.25 mm.

BookTitle: 
The Nidification Of Birds Of The Indian Empire
Reference: 
Baker, Edward Charles Stuart. The nidification of birds of the Indian Empire. Vol. 1. 1932.
Title in Book: 
323. Aetinodura egertoni ripponi
Spp Author: 
Ogilvie-grant.
Book Author: 
Edward Charles Stuart Baker
CatNo: 
323
Year: 
1932
Page No: 
285
Common name: 
Chin Hills Bar Wing
M_ID: 
25038
M_SN: 
Actinodura egertoni ripponi
Volume: 
Vol. 1
id: 
13522

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