Activity budgets, foraging behavior and diet of the White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) during the breeding and non-breeding season

BALADRÓN ALEJANDRO VICTOR; PRETELLI MATIAS GUILLERMO; CAVALLI MATILDE; BÓ MARÍA SUSANA

JOURNAL OF RAPTOR RESEARCH

RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC

Año: 2018 vol. 52 p. 420 - 430

0892-1016

From 2005 to 2009 we evaluated the activity patterns and food habits ofWhite-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) during the breeding and non-breeding seasons in theArgentine Pampas. According to time-activity budgets analyses, perching was the mostfrequently observed activity during the non-breeding season (52% of total time), whereasforaging was the most frequent activity during the breeding season (41% of total time). Flightwas the least frequent of all kites? activities in both seasons (8% and 9% during the breedingand non-breeding season, respectively). Even when kites spent a similar percentage of timeforaging during both breeding and non-breeding seasons (41% and 39%, respectively), theydiffered between seasons in hunting modes used to capture their prey. During the nonbreedingseason kites used only active search to capture prey, but they used both active andpassive searching in similar proportion during the breeding season. According to pelletanalyses, the diet of kites was mostly composed of rodents (> 96% of total prey). Smallrodents (body mass < 35 g) were dominant in numeric terms in diet in both seasons, butlarger rodents represented the bulk of biomass. Our results indicate that in the ArgentinePampas, White-tailed Kites are predominantly mammal-eating, active-search predators, allfeatures consistent with previous reports for the species in South America and North Americaand with those of other Elanus species around the world.