 The
Accentors are a fairly small family of Eurasian species, all with the single
genus Prunella. Most of them are high elevation or high latitude
species although the family does include the familiar backyard Dunnock
P. modularis of Europe. One of those montane species is Robin Accentor
(left) that occurs at high elevation from Pakistan to central China.
Accentors are mainly terrestrial birds, often feeding close to scrub or boulders. They move with a shuffling gait, but can run. They eat mostly insects in summer but often switch to seeds and fruit in winter. Their relationship to other families has been obscure. Some anatomical features are thrush-like but biochemical evidence places them most closely to wagtail and pipits (e.g., Sibley & Ahlquist 1990, Sibley & Monroe 1990) or weavers (e.g., Barker et al. 2004). |
 A
few species are resident but most move altitudinally in winter. Those from
high latitudes may migrate substantial distances, and chief among these
is Siberian Accentor (right). It primarily migrates from northern
Eurasia south to central and eastern Asia. This long migration route has
spun off vagrants to the New World where vagrants have been recorded in
Alaska, British Columbia, Washington, and Idaho (AOU 1998). My photo (right)
is of one of those vagrants. Rita and I flew to Boise, Idaho, and drove
to Hailey, a famed ski resort, to chase this one in winter 1997. The bird
moved around quite a bit and it took a long, cold wait in the snow until
it briefly appeared at the backyard feeder it had been frequenting. It
was really fine to see an accentor in the New World as it was a bird oh
so far from home. |
 Most
accentors are 'stone-colored,' to use a phrase from Cramp (1988). They
are mostly patterned in gray, brown, or rusty, often streaked above but
buff or dull-colored below. Brown Accentor (left) is one of those
that match this description. It is a bird of high mountains in central
Asia and the Himalayas. There are accentors restricted to the Japanese
and Kurile Islands (Japanese Accentor P. rubida), to arid mountains
from Turkey to Iran (Spot-throated Accentor P. ocularis), and another
a breeding endemic in high mountains of Yemen (Yemen Accentor P. fagani).
A number of central Asia species move south and downslope to the Himalayan
foothills in winter. My first accentor was that alpine specialist, Alpine
Accentor P. collaris (at the edge of Grossglockner Glacier in Austria
back in '69).
In most species, sexes appear alike or only slightly different. Nests tend to be compact cups placed in a thick shrub, close to the ground. In Dunnock, only the female incubates but both sexes feed the young. There is some really fascinating behavioral mechanisms in Dunnock that the male uses in an attempt to assure that the offspring are actually his; some remarkable footage is in David Attenborough's Life of Birds video series. |
| Photos: The Robin Accentor Prunella
rebeculoides was photographed on ridge above Qinghai Lake, Qinghai,
China, on 18 June 2004. The Siberian Accentor
P. montanella was a vagrant at Hailey, Idaho, USA, where it wintered;
this photo was taken 1 Feb 1997. The Brown Accentor
P. fulvescens was at Huzu Bei Shan National Park, Qinghai, China, on
22 June 2004. All photos © 2004 Don Roberson; all
rights reserved.
Bibliographic notes There is no recent "family book" covering the Accentors but good recent coverage is in Cramp (1988), with many Asian species in Grimmett et al. (1998). Literature cited: American Ornithologists' Union. 1998. A.O.U. Check-List of North American Birds. 7th ed. A.O.U., Washington, D.C. |