ACTIVITY BUDGETS, FORAGING BEHAVIOR, AND DIET OF WHITE-TAILED KITES (ELANUS LEUCURUS) DURING BREEDING AND NON-BREEDING SEASONS IN THE ARGENTINE PAMPAS

BALADRÓN A. V.; PRETELLI M; CAVALLI M.; BÓ M. S.

JOURNAL OF RAPTOR RESEARCH

RAPTOR RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC

Lugar: Lawrence, Kansas; Año: 2018

0892-1016

From 2005 to 2009 we evaluated the activity patterns and food habits of White-tailed Kites (Elanus leucurus) during the breeding and non-breeding seasons in the Argentine Pampas. According to time-activity budgets analyses, perching was the most frequently observed activity during the non-breeding season (52% of total time), whereas foraging was the most frequent activity during the breeding season (41% of total time). Flight was the least frequent of all kites? activities in both seasons (8% and 9% during the breeding and non-breeding season, respectively). Even when kites spent a similar percentage of time foraging during both breeding and non-breeding seasons (41% and 39%, respectively), they differed between seasons in hunting modes used to capture their prey. During the nonbreeding season kites used only active search to capture prey, but they used both active and passive searching in similar proportion during the breeding season. According to pellet analyses, the diet of kites was mostly composed of rodents (> 96% of total prey). Small rodents (body mass < 35 g) were dominant in numericterms in diet in both seasons, but larger rodents represented the bulk of biomass. Ourresults indicate that in the Argentine Pampas, White-tailed Kites are predominantly mammal-eating, active-search predators, all features consistent with previous reports for the species in South America and North America and with those of other Elanusspecies around the world.