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Tawny owls do not take birds as commonly as mammals. Unlike the unrelated lineages of diurnal birds of prey, owls in general seldom prefer avian prey, with most varieties preferring small mammals and/or insects, except on a local basis (the closest to a specialized hunter of other birds are some in the pygmy owl genus).
The owls acquired a bad reputation and were believed to prey on game bird chicks. They therefore became a concern to game breeders who tried to eliminate them. In 1935 the British Trust for Ornithology initiated a study into the little owl's diet led by the naturalist Alice Hibbert-Ware .
This species can adapt to surprisingly small prey where it is the only kind available and to large prey where it is abundant. Eurasian eagle-owls feed most commonly on small mammals weighing 100 g (0.22 lb) or more, although nearly 45% of the prey species recorded have an average adult body mass of less than 100 g (3.5 oz).
In some areas, bird prey items make a sizeable contribution to the diet. Birds up to the size of sulphur-crested cockatoos (~800 grams) and ducks are taken, but many smaller birds are more commonly taken. One frequent prey item is the tawny frogmouth, a nocturnal bird of Australian forests and woodlands. Insect prey items can dominate the prey ...
This allows it to hunt in the dark purely by sound. The birds wait on a high perch at night and swoop down on prey. They mainly eat small organisms with a strong focus on small mammals in their diet. Swengel and Swengel (1992) reviewed ten studies that found northern saw-whet owls eating almost exclusively mammals (88% to 100%), with most of ...
Margays are small, wild cats that live in the evergreen and deciduous forests of Central and South America. ... Margays hunt in trees and eat birds, eggs, fruit, and small mammals. Female Margays ...
Its food consists mainly of rodents, especially voles, but it will eat other small mammals such as rabbits, [17] mice, ground squirrels, shrews, rats, bats, muskrats and moles. It will also occasionally depredate smaller birds, especially when near sea-coasts and adjacent wetlands at which time they attack shorebirds , terns and small gulls and ...
It is a smaller owl, measuring 22–25 cm (8.7–9.8 in) making it one of the larger pygmy owls. They are primarily insectivorous but will eat lizards, small rodents and birds as well. Description