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Although the term "bird of prey" could theoretically be taken to include all birds that actively hunt and eat other animals, [4] ornithologists typically use the narrower definition followed in this page, [5] excluding many piscivorous predators such as storks, cranes, herons, gulls, skuas, penguins, and kingfishers, as well as many primarily ...
Predatory birds hunting in pairs have been observed using a "bait and switch" technique, whereby one bird will distract the prey while the other swoops in for the kill. Social behavior requires individual identification, and most birds appear to be capable of recognizing mates, siblings, and young.
Birds of prey specialise in hunting mammals or other birds, while vultures are specialised scavengers. Birds are also preyed upon by a range of mammals including a few avivorous bats. [ 268 ] A wide range of endo- and ectoparasites depend on birds and some parasites that are transmitted from parent to young have co-evolved and show host ...
The strategy of gleaning over surfaces by birds to catch invertebrate prey—chiefly insects and other arthropods—by plucking them from foliage or the ground, from crevices such as of rock faces and under the eaves of houses, or even, as in the case of ticks and lice, from living animals. Gleaning the leaves and branches of trees and shrubs ...
As Wilson notes, smaller birds will attack and annoy red-tails, representing outside forces trying to hamper our ability to take flight. But the red-tail's signature crimson tail feathers help ...
In broken-wing displays, birds that are at the nest walk away from it with wings quivering so as to appear as an easy target for a predator. [ 13 ] [ 25 ] Such injury-feigning displays are particularly well known in nesting waders and plovers , but also have been documented in other species, including snowy owls, [ 20 ] the alpine accentor ...
A wide range of animals, e.g. lizards, birds, rodents, and sharks, behave as if dead as an anti-predator adaptation, as predators usually take only live prey. [14] In beetles, artificial selection experiments have shown that there is heritable variation for length of death-feigning.
As is the case with many birds of prey, falcons have exceptional powers of vision; the visual acuity of one species has been measured at 2.6 times that of human eyes. [11] They are incredibly fast fliers, with the Peregrine falcons having been recorded diving at speeds of 320 km/h (200 mph), making them the fastest-moving creatures on Earth ...