Archive for the ‘Birds’ Category

Peregrine Falcon – Duck Hawk

The Peregrine Falcon is also known as a duck hawk in North America.

Physical Characteristics

The Peregrine Falcon gets between 13 and 23 inches long with a wingspan of between 31 to 47 inches. The female and male are colored the same, but the female is larger by up to 30 percent. Males will weigh between .97 and 1.7 pounds and females will weigh between 2 to 3.3 pounds.

They both have blue-black, long and pointy wings and white or rust colored underparts with thin black or brown bands. Their tail is also long and is rounded at the end and has a black tip with a white band.

Their cere on the beak is yellow in color, as well as their feet. However, the claws and beak are black in color and the beak has a special notch on it that helps them to kill their prey when it is used to cut the spinal cord of their prey.

Young birds are browner and are streaked instead of having bands and their cere is blue and they have an orbital ring.

Habitat and Location

They live in North, South, and Central America.

Diet

The peregrine falcon eats such as pigeons and ducks, but will also eat bats, and rodents. Young birds may learn to hunt by chasing and eating large bugs and flying insects. They pursue their prey by flying at it and swooping down onto the prey to grab it in their claws.

Breeding Facts

They can breed at a year old and mate for life. They build their nests on cliff edges or sometimes on buildings. When a male and female go through their courtship, they fly a special mixture of dives, spirals and other fancy acrobatics. The male then gives the female food in mid air and she turns upside down to take it.

They are territorial and make their nests at least a kilometer away from the closest other pair of falcons. That way there is enough food for all.  The female lays her three to four white or buff colored eggs in a hollow she digs in the dirt in February or March in the North and the falcons in the south lay theirs in July and August. They take about a month to hatch and both parents sit on the eggs.

They don’t add anything to the bare nest hollow. Both parents guard the nest from predators that would eat the chicks like other birds of prey, herons or gulls or mammals like foxes, bears, wolves or wolverines. The baby birds are called eyases and they get their feathers in about six weeks. They need to be fed by the parents for about 8 weeks.

 

Peregrine Falcon – Duck Hawk – World Of Nature

Gannet – Largest North Atlantic Seabird

The gannet is the largest sea bird in the North Atlantic. They can dive from 30 meters and go speeds of 100 km/h as they hit the water, thus diving quite deep to catch their prey.

Physical Characteristics

Gannets have a black and white body and a yellow head. They also have two meter long pointed wings and long bills.  They are quite unusual as they have no external nostrils, air sacs in the face and under the skin to soften their body hitting the water when they dive for food, plus they have eyes that are set far forward on their face so they can judge distance with binocular vision.

Habitat and Location

Northern gannets live in the North Atlantic, and two other kinds of gannets live in Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Gannets are also found in Iceland, Canada, Scotland, UK, Ireland, France, Faroe Islands, Shetland Isles, Norway, and nearly 20 percent of them live in St Kilda in Scotland.

Diet

Gannets eat fish and squid that they dive deep into the ocean to catch.

Breeding Facts

Gannets breed in colonies on the coast of islands in the thousands together. They lay one chalky colored blue egg. Gannets are unusual because it takes the young bird a full five years to mature.  The immature birds are fed by their parents regurgitating their meals for them to eat.

Gannet – Largest North Atlantic Seabird

Red Kite – Bird Of Prey

The Red Kite is a fairly large sized bird of prey that comes from the Accipitridae family of birds.

Physical Characteristics

The Red Kite gets between 24 and 27 inches long and has a wingspan of  between 175 and 195 cm. It weighs between 800 and 1300 grams and the female is slightly larger than the male. It has a long forked shaped tail, and a red and white body.

Habitat and Location

Red Kites are known to live in Europe, Africa, Turkey, and even have appeared in Finland, Israel and Libya.

Diet

The Red Kite eats little mammals like mice, shrews, voles, rabbits and hares. It also will eat carrion, sometimes finding dead sheep or game birds. They also have been known to eat birds, reptiles, amphibians and earthworms.

Breeding Facts

The adult red kites prefer to live alone except during breeding season.  They are migratory and breed in the UK, or Spain to name a couple of places. They may maintain as many as five alternate nest sites. Male and female both help to build the nest, which is made of sticks and grass and lined with sheep’s wool or vegetation. The nest is built high up in a tree on a limb or in a fork.
Red Kites mate when they are two or three years old and they mate for life.

The nest is built in March or April. The female lays two to four eggs at intervals of one every three days. The female sits on the eggs and the male brings her food. They hatch in about a month.

Since the eggs are laid so far apart, it is common for some chicks to be bigger and stronger, which can result in the smaller one dying for lack of food or being killed by the stronger one.

Puffins – Species of Auk

Puffins are any of three small species of auk: Atlantic, Tuffed, and Horned.

Physical Characteristics

Puffins are stocky, have short wings and tails, and are black and white or some have brown on them. The head is black capped with a white face and the feed are an orangish red color. When it is breeding season, the beak turns bright colors to attract the females. Then, that falls off afterwards. They get between a foot and 15 inches long, have a wingspan of between 21 and 25 inches long, and weigh between 13 ounces and about two pounds.

Habitat and Location

The Atlantic variety lives in northern Europe as far south as France, including the UK, Faroe Islands, Iceland, Greenland, Norway and Canada to Maine. The Horned variety lives in the North Pacific in Sibera. Alaska, British Colombia and it spends its winters in California. The Tuffed variety lives in the North Pacific in British Columbia, Alaska, the Aleutian Islands, the Kuril Islands and in the Sea of Okhotsk. It winters in Honshu and California.

The majority of the Atlantic variety of puffins lives in Iceland where there are estimated to be more than 10 million pairs. The Icelanders hunt the puffins for their meat and eggs and it is considered a delicacy on Icelandic menus. It is said to have a somewhat fishy taste.

Diet

Puffins seabirds that feed primarily by diving in the water to catch fish like herring, sandeel, and capelin. Plus, they also feed on zooplankton. They are capable of holding more than a dozen fish in their beaks at once as they carry the food back to their chicks. This is due to a special hinge in their beak.

Breeding Facts

Puffins breed together in colonies on the coasts of islands. The male builds the nest of the Atlantic Puffin, while both sexes of the other two build their nests. The Tuffed Puffin actually digs a burrow to lay its eggs and it may reach lengths of up to 9 feet!

The nests of the other two are usually soft dirt and tunnels lined with grass or leaves or it may be left bare. Puffins mate in long term pair bonds and lay one egg, which both parents sit on. Both also fed the check when it is born, and a baby puffin is called a puffling. After the puffling grows its feathers, it spends a few years at sea and then can breed at around 5 years old.

 

Puffin In Flight – West Wales – World Of Nature

There are two species of this bird, the red-billed and the white-winged and its closest relative is the crow. They are not endangered. They are able to do amazing aerobatics and are considered excellent fliers.

Physical Characteristics

Choughs have black feathers, bright colored feet and legs, long wide wings. They are medium sized birds and are around 16 inches long with a 25-39 inch wingspan. Some species have a yellow bill and some have a red bill and both kinds have red legs. The young bird is a duller color than the adults and not as glossy. Read the rest of this entry »

A booby is a seabird closely related to the gannets. The name means dunce, stupid or clown in Spanish slang and this name was due to the fact that they are clumsy on land and easy to catch, thus were often preyed upon by humans.

Physical Characteristics

The Blue-footed Booby grows to 32 inches and can weight three pounds. Females are larger than males. They have long and pointy wings and a tail shaped like a wedge. Read the rest of this entry »

Cormorants are a variety of marine diving sea birds and are related to pelicans. They are long-lived and have been known to live for up to 18 years. They are also called shags. Fishermen in the Orient have been known to keep them on leases and use them to hunt fish, keeping them from eating the fish by a collar on their necks. There are 26 to 30 varieties of cormorants.
Physical Characteristics

Cormorants can grow to two or three feet tall and have dark colored feathers and a hooked beak and green eyes. They have webbed feet. Read the rest of this entry »

Frigate birds are also called Man of War or Pirate birds and are related to pelicans. Although they are sea birds, they can neither swim nor walk very well. They can’t fly up from or take off from a flat surface either. They have the biggest wing span in relation to their body weight of any other bird, and they can stay airborne for longer than a week at a time and rarely land. If they do land, they roost and breed in trees and on cliffs.

Physical Characteristics

Frigate birds are large, have long wingspans up to 2.3 meters, long forked tails and long curved bills and the males have a bright red pouch they can inflate in the breeding season in order to attract a female.  They have black shiny feathers and the females have a white stomach.

Habitat and Location

Frigate birds live around tropical oceans and glide using the warm updrafts of air over the waters. Varieties of frigate birds live from the Bahamas and Baja California, Brazil, Ecuador, the South Pacific and Madagascar.
Diet
They eat a diet of baby turtles, fish, baby sea birds,  jellyfish, squid and similar foods and sometimes steal food from other sea birds by chasing them and making them throw up their catches. It is estimated they get at least 5 percent of their meals by this latter method.

Breeding Facts

Frigate birds are monogamous, and they build their nests colonially in trees or sometimes on the ground. They lay only one egg and they take care of their young longer than any other bird. The young bird stays with the parents for up to eight months. This means that the frigate birds don’t breed every year. After the young bird is three months old, the father leaves and doesn’t feed it, and only the mother takes care of it for the rest of the five months before it matures.

The Coopers Hawk was named after William Cooper, a naturalist who helped to found the New York Lyceum of Natural History. They are also known as Chicken Hawks and live on average up to 12 years.

Physical Characteristics

Cooper Hawks are medium-sized hawks with the male getting on average up to 14 oz in weight, and up to 18 inches long with up to a 36 inch wingspan. The females are larger, and get up to 24 oz in weight, 20 inches long and wingspan to 36 inches. Read the rest of this entry »

The Peacock is also called a peafowl. The peacock is India’s national bird and it is Punjab’s provincial bird. In Asia these birds are seen as a protective force, whereas for some reason in the western world they are considered bad luck, especially if they live in the house. Read the rest of this entry »

Kookaburras are very well known for their strange cry because it sounds somewhat like very loud and echoing laughter. Kookaburras are a type of big kingfishers. They can live up to 20 years old. Read the rest of this entry »

Golden Eagles are one of the large birds of prey and are part of the Accipitridae family of birds. It is considered one of the largest in the eagle family and there are actually six sub-species of golden eagles in the world. Its numbers are not as high in some parts of the world, but it is not on the endangered list at this time. Even so, it is protected in the U.S. under the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act.

They are considered a very powerful predator. In some parts of the world they are caught and trained to hunt other prey for humans or to rid the area of pests that endanger the hunter’s own crops or animals.

Golden Eagles are a powerful symbol in both nations and cultures and have appeared on flags, coins, etc. Read the rest of this entry »