Social Foraging Classes in Raptorial Birds

Social learning of hunting skills in juvenile marsh harriers Circus aeruginosus

“…Some authors (Laland et al 1996;van Schaik et al 1999) assumed that horizontal transmission is important for young animals even when transmitted Significance level: * P \ 0.001 information is of a transient value, such as when exploiting different hunting tactics in response to temporary variation of conditions of the local environment. Ellis et al (1993) showed that social hunting of raptors could have both cooperative and non-cooperative contexts. In contrast with other raptors (Hector 1986;Dekker and Taylor 2005) there were no cooperation among the participants of hunting sessions in juvenile marsh harriers observed in SE Poland.…”

Cooperative hunting in Brown-Necked Raven (Corvus rufficollis) on Egyptian Mastigure (Uromastyx aegyptius)

“…The strategy involves one bird flushing the prey in a manner that the fleeing bird's flight path is anticipated by the mate, and increases the chances of a successful hunt. The success rate of tandem hunts is almost always higher than hunts by single birds, or compensates for fluctuations in prey populations (Ellis et al 1993). Cooperative hunting has been observed mostly in falcons (e.g., Falco biarmicus, Yosef 1991, Leonardi 2002F.…”

The response of Eurasian kestrel Falco tinnunculus to falconry at Deblin Military Airfield, East Poland

“…Other changes in food composition can also be connected with falconer activity. The fact that kestrels hunted pursued birds in the second study period may result from opportunistic hunting behaviour, typical of many raptors (Ellis et al, 1993;Kitowski, 2003), and their taking advantage of the avian prey being flushed by the trained raptors. Their abandonment of hunting insectivores undoubtedly resulted from the kestrels having been pushed away by trained raptors from the more humid peripheral areas towards the drier centre of the airfield.…”