Habitat for birds of prey. Detachment diurnal birds of prey (Falconiformes, or Accipitres). Osprey carrying a caught pike

Predation, that is, catching relatively large live prey, can be different birds. These are eagles, hawks, falcons, owls, skuas, gulls. All these birds can be grouped according to their way of feeding and their role in nature. However, according to zoological systematics, only representatives of the falconiformes order belong to predators, or, more precisely, to diurnal birds of prey: eagles, sea eagles, hawks, buzzards, harriers, and falcons proper. All real diurnal predators have a characteristic predatory appearance: sharp curved claws and a curved beak. Females in color most often do not differ from males, but are noticeably larger.

ORLAN-BELOKHVOST

One of the largest birds of prey in our country, has a wingspan of more than 2 meters and a weight of 4-7 kg. An absolutely white tail occurs only in adult birds older than 3-4 years. Juveniles have a dark tail. Because of this, the young sea eagle is easily confused with the golden eagle, which occasionally flies into the forest tundra and southern tundra from the taiga. The main feature to pay attention to is the shape of the tail. In eagles, it is wedge-shaped, while in golden eagles it is only slightly rounded. In flying birds, this is clearly visible.
The nesting area of ​​the white-tailed eagle is vast - most of our mainland, almost our entire country, except for the extreme north and waterless deserts. Eagles, like other large predators, are generally rare everywhere, but just in the Tyumen North they are relatively common and noticeable birds. Eagles nest almost exclusively on trees (as a rule, on larches), rarely on rocks. An indispensable condition for the habitat of these beautiful birds is the presence of large reservoirs where there are fish and waterfowl, their main food. Eagles occupy the same nest year after year. This is a heavy, bulky building with a diameter of 1-1.5 m and a height of up to 1 m. Every year from spring, birds build a nest in height, dragging branches into it and lining it with grass, so the old nests look like a layer cake. In residential nests of the eagle, like many other predators, there is always at least some fresh greenery. Most often, these are larch branches, the needles of which are the richest in phytoncides and therefore serve as a kind of disinfectant for the nest.
In the open tundra, sea eagles settle very rarely, arranging nests on cliffs and hills. Immature birds (with a dark tail) often fly far to the north in summer, outside the nesting range. They were met even on Bely Island.
Eagles arrive early from the south, sometimes as early as mid-April, when winter is almost complete, usually in early to mid-May. They arrive in pairs, which are constant among the eagles. Females lay 1-3 white eggs in a renovated nest, with dull brownish or buffy spots. Eggs are relatively small, smaller than goose. From the laying of the first egg, the birds begin incubation. This is mainly done by the female. In early June, the chicks hatch. They grow very quickly and begin to feather, reaching the size of a large goose. The size of the chicks are very different from each other.
As a rule, eagles do not attack a person examining the nest, they only circle at a distance, emitting a hoarse scream. At the end of July-first half of August, young birds leave the nest, but their parents feed them for a long time. Eagles fly south in September-early October.
The food of the eagles is varied: ducks, loons, geese, partridges, which the eagles catch on the surface of the water or on the ground, hares, lemmings, large fish. Most often, sick and wounded animals become prey. Eagles willingly eat carrion. Even large deer bones were found in their nests.
The white-tailed eagle is a rare bird, a true decoration of our nature, listed in the Red Books of the USSR, the RSFSR and the International Red Book. It is very unfortunate that the eagles often die from the shots of poachers. They are also very sensitive to anxiety. It has been noted that in the forest-tundra regions of the Tyumen region, the sea eagles left the banks of the rivers visited by people and moved to small rivers impassable for motor boats.

GOSHAWK

A fairly large bird, one and a half times larger than a crow and weighing 0.7 - 1.5 kg. The most characteristic signs of an adult goshawk are clear transverse stripes on the underside of the body, dark gray upperparts, and bright yellow eyes. In young birds, red and brown tones are present in color, and the streaks on the chest and belly are not transverse, but longitudinal.
The goshawk has long been considered a particularly harmful predator and subjected to increased persecution, and now it has become rare. Currently, the goshawk is under the protection of the law, like all other birds of prey.
This is a dexterous, strong robber, hunting mostly medium-sized birds for food, from a thrush to a crow, as well as medium-sized animals: squirrels, young hares. Goshawks primarily catch sick, weakened animals, thereby improving the populations of their potential victims. On the example of the goshawk, the important biological role of the predator as a natural orderly is most clearly manifested.
The northern border of the vast distribution area of ​​this species runs along the forest-tundra. Separate, northernmost pairs nest in floodplain forests along the rivers of the southern tundra. In winter, depending on foraging conditions, hawks either remain in the breeding area or fly south. The latter happens more often. However, the opposite is also characteristic of the northern regions: in autumn and winter, a significant part of these predators migrate to the north, to the forest-tundra and even to the open tundra, where they feed on white partridges. When the partridges fly south, the hawks follow.
The goshawk nests in trees, at a considerable height from the ground. In clutch there are 3-4 eggs, white or with indistinct spots.

// Ryabitsev V.K. Tundra birds. - Sverdlovsk: Middle-Ural. book. Publishing house, 1986. - 192 p., 32 p. ill.

IN FREE FLIGHT

Radaeva N.

At the end of winter, in the crown of an old tree, in the most remote thicket of the forest, a family of goshawks built a nest. They worked hard by the sweat of their brows. Elastic twigs were broken from nearby trees, and a platform was built from them. They trampled down so that it did not blow through from below. The thin and flexible ends of the branches were laid on top, biting with their beak those that were bristling. And the low sides were blinded somehow from dry twigs. Finally the house is built! It turned out something like a wattle fence, through which you can see what is happening outside, but it is imperceptible who is hiding inside.
Hawks are incredibly attached to their ancestral nests. Some of them were built over half a century ago. How many generations flew out of them!
Spring for goshawks begins earlier than for other birds. You can't wait for the heat to come. We must have time to teach children all the techniques of hawk hunting. The old-timers - woodpeckers, blackbirds, finches - have not yet appeared in the snow-covered forest, and three greenish-white eggs already lie in the hawk's nest. For almost forty days, the female incubates them, carefully turning them over and arranging them with the greatest comfort. All this time, the future father touchingly takes care of his girlfriend. Brings her already half-plucked and ready-to-eat small birds. While she is having lunch, he relieves her at the nest. As a gallant gentleman brings a bunch of spring mimosa to the lady of his heart, so he appears before her with the first green twigs in his beak. The lady favorably accepts them, putting them in a nest. At the same time, he does not forget about his own toilet. Even sitting on the nest, it picks feather after feather with its beak, plucks out small fluffs, which, picked up by the wind, smoothly whirl in the air.
In due time, snow-white newborns are born. This joyful event is celebrated modestly, in a narrow family circle. On this occasion, the happy father returned from hunting with two woodpeckers. Now on his "shoulders" lies the duty to feed the entire family. The working day starts at dawn. Bring the female prey, and again to fish. The mother tears the meat into small pieces and feeds the chicks from beak to beak. He leaves for himself what is worse - legs, skin, head. The best for kids!
Having fed the family, the hawk-father is not averse to being distracted from household chores. Another in his place, taking advantage of the opportunity, would have crouched somewhere under the lulling rustle of leaves. But, appreciating freedom, loneliness and free flight more than anything in the world, he soars high into the sky to rub himself among the white clouds driven by the wind.
Short rounded wings, a long tail, a dense, laterally compressed body up to seventy centimeters long allow the goshawk to maneuver well in the forest and rush through dense foliage.
Such a flight is not available even to his close relatives. Spreading its wings with a span of a meter and not flapping them even once in several hours of walking, it flies, soaring freely, to where the sun, silence and wind are. Looking at the bird, one involuntarily recalls the ancient Icarus.
As soon as the children grow up a little, the mother puts the nest at their complete disposal. But she doesn't fly far. Sitting comfortably on a nearby tree, he looks after the chicks. With desperate courage, she defends them, attacking anyone who, in her opinion, is about to encroach on the nest. “Kek, kak, kak,” her warning cry is heard far away, which, however, can be heard infrequently.
Unlike the male, which preys on small and medium-sized birds, the female prefers squirrels, chipmunks, and ground squirrels. It flies not far and, having outlined the victim, slowly plans down. Grabbing the prey with sharp claws, he takes it to a secluded place and starts eating.
The hawks are growing fast. They differ in growth: females, as they should be, are larger, males are smaller. Now they themselves deal with the prey that their parents throw into their nest. Of course, not without conflicts. The smallest hawk, impudently stepping on a dead bird, puffed out its chest, unfolded its wings and opened its beak. Almost like a crow from a famous fable - I was just about to have breakfast. Yes, it was not there. Got a good slap from my older sister. And rightly so. Do not jump in line, do not break the established order in hawk families. Here they eat according to seniority. While one is having breakfast, the rest, swallowing saliva, must patiently wait for their turn.
Today is an important day in their lives! The chicks will have a serious exam - to fly up to the next branch. They are already forty days old, they have completely fledged, their wings have strengthened. One of them perches on the edge of the nest, clutching it with its claws, and diligently works its wings. The weather is non-flying, but the mother encourages the baby with an impatient cry. Finally, having gathered his strength and spirit, he copes with this task, and finds himself next to his parent. After a while, others follow suit.
Before the real flight, they will be under home supervision for another month. Before parting with the chicks, parents must teach them all the tricks of hawk hunting and life: to be invisible in the forest, to attack by surprise, to attack prey at any frequency, to take it from a tree, from the ground, from water, in the air, to be strong, courageous, dexterous. And everything else these young predators will have to comprehend themselves.

// "Young Naturalist", 2000, No. 3, S. 29-31

MOKHNOGONY Buzzard, or ZIMNYAK

The most common and most famous bird of prey in the tundra and forest tundra. Breeds throughout the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. The main food of the buzzard is lemmings and voles. The number of many predators, and primarily buzzards, also depends on the number of these rodents. In the same area they may not be at all, or there may be so many that they are constantly visible in the air, and the nests are located 0.5-1.5 km from one another.
The upland buzzard is a very large bird, much larger than a crow. In addition, the buzzard is quite wide-winged, which makes it seem even larger. The general tone of its coloration is light, slightly reddish. On the belly there is a black spot, on the underside of the wings there is another spot of smaller sizes. The spots are of various shapes, so that by their pattern one can even identify buzzards individually.
Where there is woody vegetation, Rough-legged Rough-legged Rough-legged Buzzards invariably build nests of boughs, with grass lining, in trees. In tundra regions, favorite nesting sites are coastal cliffs, peaks and hillsides. Often, especially in mouse years, one can find nests on a flat tundra, even on flat lowlands of river floodplains, among swamps. The poorest nests I have ever seen were a hole in the ground with a meager lining of grass. Around, as if in mockery, several crooked dry twigs of dwarf birch were lying around. In the northern tundra, where there are no longer any shrubs, such nests are common. Instead of boughs, buzzards there use various roots washed out of the ground by water or blown by the wind.
Upland buzzards are migratory birds. They arrive from the south even before the thawed patches or with their appearance. Soon they start nesting. The eggs are slightly larger than chicken eggs, more rounded, white, with spots that are either barely visible in the form of a light buffy or brownish veil, or, on the contrary, dotted with bright rusty, brown or reddish-brown spots. The number of eggs in a clutch, also depending on the "harvest" of rodents, is from 2 to 7, more often 3-5. Not all chicks manage to experience the happiness of flight, they do not always live up to this age. In low-feed years, younger chicks eaten by older brothers grow slowly, weaken and die. Often, older hungry buzzards simply eat the sickly younger ones. This, in our opinion, monstrous cruelty is not so rare in the world of birds of prey. But it is very expedient, as it allows at least part of the brood to survive in fodder years.
When a person appears at the nest, buzzards always raise a cry. Their nasal, mournful cries are very annoying, as the whimpers of a capricious, ill-mannered child can be annoying. If the word "buzz" comes from the word "buzzard", then this is a very fair analogy. Although it could be the other way around, and this is no less true. Buzzards, protecting the nest, boldly swoop down on arctic foxes and dogs, striking with their claws. They only sometimes dive at a person, but they are afraid to touch.
Rough-legged buzzards are not so strict about their mouse diet, although small rodents are indeed their main food. But even with the abundance of lemmings and voles, the remnants of birds were sometimes found near the nests of the buzzards. These were nestlings of small passerines, and even adult partridges. Occasionally, Rough-legged Buzzards manage to catch a gaping hare or ermine. They do not disdain carrion either: they eat dead fish, meat and entrails of fallen deer and deer.
Autumn departure of the Rough-footed Buzzards takes place in September-October. In late autumn and early spring, they can be found in the middle zone of our country.

FIELD HARRY

Harrier is a bird, mainly of open spaces of forest-tundra, taiga and forest-steppe zones. With an abundance of rodents nests in the southern tundra.
The size of a field harrier is about a crow, but more slender, long-tailed. Male and female are colored differently. The male is white, with an ash-gray bloom, more intense on the upper side of the body (remember the expression "hoary as a harrier"), the tips of the wings are black. Females and young birds are reddish-gray. They differ from other dark birds of prey with a white "loin".
Harriers always nest on the ground, eggs (3-5) are white or slightly spotted, smaller than chicken ones and more rounded. These are migratory birds that appear in the spring with thawed patches and fly away in September. They feed mainly on lemmings and voles. They are usually seen over open areas, when they slowly fly low over the ground and look out for prey.

D E R B N I K

One of our smallest falcons. It has a large range, but in the Tyumen North it breeds no further north than the southern tundra. In general, it can be considered quite rare.
The main and almost the only prey of the Merlin is birds: small passerines and medium-sized waders, which he catches, as a rule, on the fly, grabbing with his paws. The arrival of Merlins coincides with the appearance of flocks of migratory snow buntings, with them they fly south.
Merlins nest most often on trees, in old crows' nests. Where there is no forest, they lay their eggs directly on the ground, on the slope of a hillock or a high river bank. There are 3-5 eggs, the size of pigeons, entirely in rust-red and red-brown spots. Both birds participate in incubation, but mainly the female, which is larger and more red. Incubation lasts about 4 weeks, about the same time the chicks sit in the nest. At first, in the first week and a half after hatching, they are very pretty, covered with thick white down.
In the tundra and forest-tundra, the merlin is the only small bird of prey (from the size of a dove), so, in fact, there is no one to confuse it with. Like other birds of prey, the Merlin is protected by law.

K R E CH E T

Gyrfalcon lives in the Far North, in the forest-tundra and in the southern tundra, where there is woody vegetation along the river floodplains. This is a very rare bird, endangered, listed in the International Red Book, in the Red Books of the USSR and the RSFSR. For killing a gyrfalcon and ruining a nest, a poacher is criminally liable.
Only a few pairs nest throughout the Tyumen North. However, on the river A unique place has been found in Shchuchya, where about 15 couples have been living in recent years.
Nesting sites are remarkably consistent. Nests are known that gyrfalcons have occupied for decades. On the river Pike, one might say, is a real natural gyrfalcon reserve. There is no other area on the map of our country where these beautiful birds nest in such relatively large numbers.
In appearance and size, the gyrfalcon is similar to the goshawk, but more massive, heavier than it. This is our largest falcon. In flight, it can be distinguished by the shape of the wings, rounded in a hawk and elongated, sharp in a gyrfalcon. The color of the gyrfalcon is most often gray, dark above and light, with dark streaks below. Old males are almost completely white, with small speckles. Gyrfalcons do not have the dark stripe on the sides of the head behind the eyes, so characteristic of the goshawk. Hawks have bright yellow eyes, falcons have dark brown, almost black eyes.
Gyrfalcons are silent. Only when a person appears at the nest, they express concern with rough, hoarse cries of "hhek, hek, hek ...".

// Ryabitsev V.K. Tundra birds. - Sverdlovsk: Middle-Ural. book. Publishing house, 1986. - 192 p., 32 p. ill.

* * *

The largest, most beautiful and rarest of the falcons. Differs in light color - from almost completely white with small streaks to gray with whitish streaks on the bottom. Previously, they were considered different types. The first was called white polar or Icelandic, the second - Norwegian.
Breeds in southern tundra and forest-tundra along rivers. VK Ryabitsev wrote in 1985 that there are only about 20 breeding pairs of Gyrfalcons in the entire Ob North. Most of their nests (up to 15 pairs) are located near the Shchuchye River, which flows into the Gulf of Ob from the mountains of the Polar Urals. VK Orlov told about meetings with gyrfalcons in those places (and not only) in the book "Behind the white gyrfalcon". (M. 1991).
Here you can also learn a lot of interesting things about the history of falconry in Russia, which was especially developed during the reign of Alexei Mikhailovich, father of Peter I. It was at this time (1673) that the letter received by the Tobolsk voivode dates, where it was proposed to send ten Siberian gyrfalcons to Moscow for royal hunting.
I was attracted by one story-legend cited by V.K.
We are talking about a small church standing in Moscow on Trifonovskaya Street not far from the Olimpiysky sports complex. VK Orlov called it an architectural monument of the 16th century, a monument to falconry and its main protagonist - the gyrfalcon. The church was supposedly erected by the falconer of Ivan the Terrible Trifon Patrikeyev in honor of Saint Tryphon, the patron saint of all falconers, who appeared to him in a dream and suggested where the king’s beloved white gyrfalcon was. The author reports that the church fresco depicting Saint Tryphon with a white gyrfalcon on his glove is still kept in the storerooms of the Tretyakov Gallery.
The magazine talks about the same legend, but the time is questioned, because. the church was put up in the time of John III, in 1492 -. according to the date carved on the stone. Further, it is quite correctly indicated that the Phrygian holy martyr Tryphon was never a hunter. I know from my own experience that many tourists who visited Bulgaria heard about the canonized peasant Trifon-Zarezan. Near Varna on Golden Sands there is even a restaurant of the same name with pictures from his life.
Therefore, one cannot but agree with the conclusion of the magazine that it was thanks to that legend that Saint Tryphon became the protector of hunters in Russia, like Saint Hubert in Europe. This is evidenced by many Russian icons depicting Saint Tryphon with a falcon, though not always with a white falcon.

S A P S A N

The most famous of all falcons. He was even called earlier "the real falcon". Firstly, because from time immemorial to this day, he remains the most desired bird of prey. Secondly, the peregrine falcon is distributed almost all over the world. The fate of the peregrine falcon is very similar to the fate of the gyrfalcon and almost as sad. They have almost disappeared from all densely populated countries, becoming very rare even in poorly populated areas of the middle latitudes. In America, to "resurrect" this species, falcons are kept in enclosures, chicks are raised and released into the wild. This is a very complex business that requires a lot of skill and a lot of money. The cost of one falcon released into the wild is about one and a half thousand dollars. Similar work has begun in our country.
As evidence of the former popularity among the people and the wide distribution of the peregrine falcon, local names are still preserved - Falcon tracts, Falcon rocks, Sokolinka rivers ... These beautiful, proud birds once nested there. The appearance of the falcon is indeed proud. This definition suits the peregrine falcon most of all. Particularly expressive is the clear, piercing look of his black eyes from under sharp black brows. The Russian people called their heroes clear falcons.
In all of Yamal, there are hardly more than 200 pairs of peregrine falcons, that is, they are included in the category of very rare ones in terms of numbers. Nevertheless, the tundra of Western Siberia is one of the few areas where the peregrine falcons are the most successful.
The peregrine falcon has a dark, almost black upper body and wings, a light, almost white underparts with a gray transverse (longitudinal in young) pattern. Distinct black "whiskers" most clearly distinguish the peregrine falcon from other predators with which it may be confused by an inexperienced naturalist. In flight, the peregrine falcon is distinguished by its dense structure and sharp wings. It is about the size of a crow, but more a heavy. Females are colored in the same way as males, but noticeably larger than them.
The peregrine falcon is the fastest living creature, and among birds in particular. His method of hunting is diving from above on prey. He grabs medium-sized birds - small passerines and waders - with his paws, and larger ones, such as ducks, beats with flying claws of his hind fingers, after which he picks up a falling victim on the fly or descends to her on the ground.
There is an opinion that peregrine falcons do not hunt at the nest. This is not true. We saw how the male tried to catch birds right under the cliff, where the female was sitting on the nest. Sometimes these attempts were successful. But still, most often peregrine falcons brought prey to the nest from afar, from a distance of several kilometers. The fact is that a variety of birds living next to their formidable enemy and even using his protection very quickly learn to avoid his attacks. To do this, they simply fall to the ground or seek shelter in the bush. Even geese flying over the nest resort to this trick when the falcon tries to attack them. One flock, in which there were about a dozen bean goose, noticing a peregrine falcon preparing for an attack from above behind them, hastily descended and flopped into an old woman under a cliff. The peregrine falcon sat at the top, at its usual observation post, and the geese swam away along the oxbow lake, then went on foot. And only having retired a kilometer, they rose into the air, described a large semicircle around the nest and flew away in their former direction. In fact, geese cannot be called any ordinary prey for peregrine falcons. They rarely attack birds larger than partridges, stalks or pintails.
Peregrine falcons jealously protect their nest from enemies. When danger appears, the male rises into the air and with hoarse cries of "keek, cake, cake ...." dives over and over again at the newcomer. Then the female leaves the nest and joins the male. They also attack a person, but never touch him, but only try to scare him. But dogs and arctic foxes, apparently, know well what falcon's claws are, because after the very first "dive" they run away with heart-rending panic cries.
The peregrine falcon is a very original hunter, downright a collector. In the vicinity of his nest, you can collect feathers and other remains from birds of various species. At the nest on Nurmayakh, they found the remains of two species of birds, which they themselves did not see there, despite constant observations. One of these victims was a large spotted woodpecker that flew into the tundra from a distant taiga, the other was a small godwit, also a rather rare guest in this part of Yamal.
In the desire to get unusual birds, an interesting feature of predators in general is manifested, including unfortunate hunters from our human tribe. All of them catch (shoot) first of all prey, something different from all the others.
Peregrine falcon nests are located in a variety of places: on rocks, in old alien nests in trees, even in hollows, in flat areas - on an absolutely flat place, on the ground. In the tundra, the most common place for a nest is the top or slope of a steep river bank or hill, which is certainly covered with grassy vegetation and with a good view. The nest is just a hole, most often without lining at all. There are 3-5 eggs. They are the size of a medium-sized chicken egg, more round, beautiful reddish-brown or brick-red densely spotted color. Incubation begins after the laying of the first egg, so the chicks vary greatly in size. For peregrine falcons, there are no known facts of shamelessly eating older chicks by younger ones, as happens with buzzards. On this occasion, one would like to say that the falcon is a noble bird. But this "nobility" is explained by the fact that the bird population is not subject to such sharp ups and downs as the number of rodents. Therefore, there is always enough food for peregrine falcons and their children.
Peregrine falcons are solitary birds. They never gather in flocks (as, indeed, most other raptors). A pair from a pair nests at a considerable distance, usually no closer than 3-5 km. About a dozen couples live on the largest Yamal river, Yuribey, from year to year.
Pair composition and nesting sites are very constant over the years.
Peregrine falcons are migratory birds. They arrive in early spring, when the tundra comes to life and fills with bird voices. And they fly south after the flocks of birds.
There is a dark period in the history of the peregrine falcon when it was persecuted as a vicious hunter of game. They were persecuted undeservedly, because, according to special estimates, even in their hunting area they catch only such a fraction of the bird population that can be neglected, and they mainly catch non-commercial trifles. But the results of past persecutions are still felt today. And other factors that negatively affected the well-being of other birds of prey also affected the peregrine falcon.
And now the royal "clear falcon", listed in all existing Red Books, is waiting for help from a person. To preserve it in our tundra, it is not yet necessary to spend money and diligence on captive breeding with subsequent release. All you need is an attentive, careful attitude, protection from poachers, from those who like to shoot indiscriminately.

// Ryabitsev V.K. Tundra birds. - Sverdlovsk: Middle-Ural. book. Publishing house, 1986. - 192 p., 32 p. ill.

S C O P A

Status.Reduced population. Rare view. Included in the Red Books of the USSR and the RSFSR.

Morphological features. Quite a large bird (wingspan 145 - 170 cm) of contrasting coloration. It differs from all other birds of prey in white, with a slight yellowness, on the underside of the body, only across the goiter there is a small strip of dark mottled. Below the wing is a characteristic black and white pattern with a dark spot on the carpal fold. The top of the body, wings and tail is uniformly dark brown, at a distance it seems black. A wide black stripe runs along the white head through each eye. The eyes are yellow. In the female, the stripe on the goiter is darker than in the male. Young birds have a scaly pattern on the back of light edges on the feathers. The male performs a current flight at a high altitude - it flies in circles and, often flapping its wings, makes loud cries of "uilp ... uilp ...". Similar calls are made by adult birds at roll call. In case of alarm at the nest, the cry "kai-kai-kai ..." or "ki-ki-ki ..." is heard.

Spreading. Cosmopolitan look. Distributed throughout the world, except for Antarctica and some oceanic islands. In YaNAO, apparently, it breeds in the south, in the taiga zone, but very few nesting sites have been identified in recent decades. On migration occurs up to southern tundra. Winters mainly in the tropical latitudes of Africa and South Asia.
Number. In the 1970s 27 osprey nests were found in Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, of which 11-17 were inhabited.

Security measures. The species is listed in Appendix II to the CITES Convention. Its strict protection is necessary, the preservation of tall dead trees, the construction of artificial nests, the creation of rest zones around the nests, the improvement of hunting culture, and the fight against pollution of water bodies with oil products.

// Red Book of the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug: Animals, plants, mushrooms / Ed. ed. L.N. Dobrinsky. - Yekaterinburg: Ural Publishing House. un-ta, 1997. - 240s.: ill. As with diurnal predators, female owls are larger than males, but the color does not depend on sex - it is usually dull, grayish or brownish with streaks. The wings are long, wide, rounded, the tail is relatively short, the legs are mostly feathered to the claws. Sharp eyesight, subtle hearing, silent flight allow them to successfully hunt in the dark, but many owls fly out for prey in the daytime.
Unlike falconiformes, the use of owls as rodent exterminators has always been more obvious than the harm to the hunting economy. Therefore, in most countries they have long been protected, which again cannot be said about the former USSR, where all birds of prey were outlawed for a long time. And even now, because of their carelessness, and sometimes curiosity, owls get shot more often than fast-winged and cautious daytime predators. And the result is the same - either they will throw it away, or they will cut off the wings for a souvenir, or they will make a stuffed animal.

OWL WHITE, or POLAR

Let's start with the most colorful and largest - WHITE or POLAR OWL.
Alfred Brehm, who visited our area in 1876, called it a white owl and the brainchild of the tundra, although this nomadic bird is found not only in the forest zone, but also in the forest-steppe. The wingspan is about one and a half meters, the body length is up to 71 cm. Old birds are almost completely white with small spots on the head and wings, young ones are motley. The eyes are yellow, the beak is black, and the legs and toes are densely feathered.
In nature, I saw snowy owls many times in the Yamal tundra, and in the forest tundra near Salekhard, and in the Ob floodplain near Khanty-Mansiysk. They prey on various rodents and birds. In the tundra, these are mainly lemmings and partridges, as well as snow bunting, sandpipers, gulls, and ducks. A hare and even an ermine can get into the claws of a white owl. She skillfully catches fish, sometimes plunging into the water like an osprey. Often tormented by arctic foxes caught in slops and traps, hares and partridges in loops, for which hunters do not like her and, on occasion, kill her.
It should be noted that the Nenets and Khanty from time immemorial have been intensively extracting whitefish for the sake of meat. In the tundra, for example, artificial snow-ice columns were made, on which traps were placed. The Nenets talked about a method akin to a joke, about catching hares with a brick, a pinch of pepper and a cabbage leaf. The hare ate a leaf, sniffed pepper, sneezed and ... his forehead on a brick. And here, between two sticks or the same posts, they stretch a piece of rope or an old lasso. The owl sits down, clasps the rope with its fingers, falls upside down and, without loosening its death grip, hangs in anticipation of the hunter. And what? It may very well be. A monkey does not release a banana or an apple caught in a narrow-necked jug...

Brehm briefly mentions another species of the same large OWLS - LAPLAND, naming from external signs a long tail and a perfectly round facial disk. Other sources (V.I. Yazvitsky, 1930) confirm its widespread distribution in the North and give a second name - the Lapland owl.
In the hope that someone has seen or will see her, I fully convey the description I read. The predominant color of the plumage on the upper side is dull gray-brown; from the bottom - light gray with a reddish bloom; both of these primary colors are mottled with dark gray and dark brown spots. The goiter area has a black one-color spot in the form of a beard, tinted with white on the sides. The eyes are bright yellow with red-brown eyelids, the beak is waxy yellow.
V. Yazvitsky also writes about a variety of the Lapland owl, which most scientists of that time were inclined to consider an independent species, the ashy owl. And I will be very grateful to ornithologists, hunters and just nature lovers for reporting on encounters with these birds or mentioning them in literature.

Now oh BORED OWL, which is more common than others in the tundra and in open spaces of the forest-tundra and taiga. In winter, she roams throughout Europe and Asia, flies to Africa, and across America - from the north to the southern tip. For this, Brem calls her a cosmopolitan and reports that she was once seen over the open sea west of the Cape Verde Islands.
The short-eared owl is small compared to the snowy owl, the total length is between 30-40 centimeters, the wingspan is about a meter. The color of adult birds is ocher or reddish with brown longitudinal stripes, sometimes with a lighter bottom. Beak and claws are black. Feeds mainly on rodents, catches chicks, frogs and insects.

F I L I N

The largest of the owls is OWL. Its wingspan is 150-180 cm. The color is variegated with a combination of red, rusty-yellow, black-brown flowers with a longitudinal and transverse pattern. The head has feather ears, the eyes are bright orange or red, the beak and claws are dark. In the north, it is distributed up to the border of the forest.
The owl feeds mainly on rodents - from mice to hares, as well as birds from small passerines to wood grouse, attacks falcons, hawks and buzzards, catches frogs and fish. In the north, it can hunt during the day, but in general it is a nocturnal and twilight bird. The cries of the "king of the night" - bookukane, giggling, loud screeching, grumbling and beak clicking - are sometimes heard until the morning.

Among the owls there is one and typically diurnal bird,HAWK OWL , also called a falcon owl or an owl falcon, to which it looks like sharp wings, fast flight, hunting style, courage and even a cry. There are other similarities - transverse streaks on the chest and belly, the absence of a facial disc and a circle of feathers around the eyes, a flat forehead and a narrow face, thick plumage. About the size of a swamp. The predominant color is light, on the head in front of and behind the ear there is a black stripe in the form of a crescent, the crown is black-brown. The throat and underside are white-motley, the upper side is brown with light spots. Flight and tail feathers are mouse-colored with whitish edges. It occurs throughout the Ob North, penetrating into the tundra through floodplain forests. Produces birds up to partridge, lemmings, wood mice, as well as insects.

//Patrikeev N.B. Swamp-meadow hunting with a spaniel: From the notes of the Ob-Irtysh hunter. Khanty-Mansiysk, 1996, 125 p.

Diurnal predators hunt on a bright day, a few - at dusk (broad-snouted and other twilight kites, sometimes alets, hobbies), at night - no one.

Birds of medium size, but there are also small ones - pygmy falcons, wingspan of about 25 centimeters, and very large ones - black vulture, condors: wingspan up to 3 meters. Fewer, however, than pelicans, marabou and albatrosses. Weight of eagles - up to 9, condors - up to 12, black vultures - up to 14 kilograms.

Monogamy. Some couples do not part for years (hawks, golden eagles). Only females incubate (hawks, harriers, forest falcons, hobby falcons, saker falcons, serpent-eaters, secretaries, etc.). Some also have males (buzzards, kites, vultures, vultures, caranchos, vultures, buzzards, etc.). However, the question of the division of labor between the female and the male has not been finally resolved. Many, among them such renowned researchers as Oscar Heinrot and G.P. Dementiev, argue that in all, at least, typical diurnal birds of prey, the female incubates. The male only brings her prey, sometimes for a short time, for two hours, replaces her.

Nests on trees, in hollows, in rock niches, rarely on the ground (harriers, steppe eagles, sometimes caranchos, peregrine falcons, merlins, red-footed falcons, ospreys), even sometimes in burrows (kestrels). In the clutch of large predators - 1-2 eggs, in medium-sized 3-4 and up to 9 in small ones. They incubate from the first egg, about a month, large species - twice as much. Most chicks leave the nest in a month, in large vultures - after 3-4 months. Sexual maturity in large birds (California condors) at 6 years.

Eagles live in captivity up to 50 years or more, hawks - up to 25 years. And one condor lived in the Moscow Zoo for 69 years!

There are about 270 species in the detachment, according to other estimates - 291 species. The range of the detachment is the whole world, except for Antarctica and some small islands.

Five families.

American vultures: 6 - 7 species, Secretaries: 1 species (Africa), Ospreys: 1 species (almost the whole world), Hawks: 198-208 species (whole world), Falcons: 58-60 species (whole world). Some taxonomists do not distinguish the osprey in a separate family, combining it with hawks. There are other divisions of the order of birds of prey.

Eagle Tribe

The bird of prey is endowed with special weapons - everyone will recognize it. This tearing beak, curved with a sharp hook, and claws that pierce the victim in a death grip, are weapons of a clearly offensive type, with which all birds of prey successfully operate in raids.

All? More precisely, almost everything. Some, having evolved over the centuries, have lost the habit of dashing attacks on game. They preferred the dead. They became scavengers, corpse-eaters. This unattractive tendency should not turn us away: the role of carrion-eating birds in the life of nature is very great!

Others (the American caracal, the African vulture eagle) were tempted by nature to become vegetarians. They eat a variety of fruits of palm trees and other plants. Still others preferred mollusks (slug-eating kite) or fish (osprey) to all the gifts of the edible world.

On the other hand, gulls, crows, magpies, even albatrosses and petrels, storks, some parrots will not refuse, on occasion, to kill and eat someone's poorly guarded chicks, some small bird, hare, chicken, mouse, weasel. .. In a word, a well-known predation in their nature. Therefore, recently, some respected researchers have proposed abandoning the old name of the order “birds of prey” and using something else - “eagles” or “hawks”.

The logic is consistent with this proposal, especially since we know another order of pure predators - owls, or nocturnal birds of prey. They are not closely related to the diurnal. Nevertheless, armed in the same way and in the same role (only mainly at night!) Act in the arena of life.

“Their relationship with copepods (cormorants, pelicans, etc.) and with a group of stork herons is quite definite ...

In the evolutionary series, birds of prey, in general, seem to be higher than copepods, herons, storks and gallinaceous birds, but significantly lower than passerines. In the development of their chicks, a certain similarity with storks is noticeable: the birth of chicks is already sighted and in fluff, an early change of the first downy robe to the second ... (which the herons do not have) ... Copepods are born naked and blind, overgrown with fluff only later. Birds of prey, storks and herons can rightly be called "fake chicks" ... If the nest is not very high, the chicks will soon crawl out of it, which usually happens with harriers nesting on the ground. Birds of a true nestling type leave their cradle only when they are fully feathered and already able to fly. Think, for example, of doves and swallows” (Oscar and Magdalena Heinroth).

But there are no chicks yet. Spring. The revived nature is seething with active life. At dawn, black grouse lek in forest clearings and meadows, capercaillie lek in pine forests and on upland bogs. White partridges scream in the predawn darkness...

There are also birds of prey. Happy. With a special mating flight and cry, declaring their readiness to pair up according to their species and gender. A single male kestrel by a ritual flight from top to bottom to some old crow's nest of his choice invites a female. When it is found, the birds together slightly renovate the nest, bring fresh bedding and hatch chicks in it.

The goshawk, with a sharp gigg-gig-gig call, notifies the neighborhood of its mating intentions. Often, married couples, such as hawks, are inseparable for years. A foreign male, trying to destroy their union with his invasion, is at great risk. He is attacked in unison, the female with particular fury, and it happens that she kills the uninvited groom, plucks, tears to pieces and eats. At the nest of one such friendly hawk pair, half a dozen killed and plucked male applicants were found in the spring.

The females of many birds of prey are larger than the males. In sparrowhawks, this predominance in weight and strength of the "weaker" sex over the "strong" one is especially noticeable: the male is one third smaller. In other species, the difference is almost the same (falcons) or not so great (in American vultures), and it does not exist at all, or even the male is larger, for example, in condors.

The difference in strength also determines the “sort” of prey: the male sparrowhawk catches small birds, the female - larger ones, even pigeons and partridges. Although she herself is larger than her husband, she is also not very large - her weight is 200-300 grams.

See how nature has wisely disposed: a large female incubates eggs: the larger the volume of the hen, the better the shelter of the eggs. A small male brings her, and later the chicks, prey: small birds. But these are what chicks need in the first days of life! Later, when they grow up and get out of the nest to neighboring branches, the female also flies to fish. In the meantime, ”sitting in the nest, sheds, without wasting time. The male molts two to three weeks later. The hawk looks out for prey from a shelter on a tree or conducts reconnaissance in low flight over bushes, thick grass. It also returns to the nest low above the ground. Hawks fly high only in spring, when they lek.

Kites, vultures and condors bring prey to the goiter and then regurgitate the chicks. Hawks and falcons transport in their claws, bearded vultures sometimes in their beaks. The male does not feed the chicks himself, at least in the case of hawks and hobbies, but gives what he has brought to the female. She first plucks feathers or wool, then tears the victim into small pieces and distributes it to the chicks.

The male sparrow hawk usually warns the female from a distance that he is carrying food. She flies out and picks her up. Or, flying over the nest, the male throws prey into it.

If the mother dies, then the chicks also die, when they are very small and cannot themselves tear the birds brought by the male. The father only throws and throws them into the nest, fills up the chicks dying of hunger with food. But sometimes the old instinct awakens in the male, and if the female is dead, he begins to tear the prey to pieces and “feed the chicks.

The eyes of nestlings, even those birds of prey in which the cornea turns yellow later, are always black, clearly visible against the background of their white or gray-white downy plumage. It's an evocator! A visible sign that encourages parents to feed their offspring. When satiated, the chicks turn their backs to the parent. He does not see then black eyes and stops feeding. Once, in the nest of a sparrowhawk, 4. which was observed by zoologists, one already well-fed nestling awkwardly rolled over on its back. His mother saw his black eyes turned to her, thrusting and thrusting a bloody piece of meat into his beak. But the chick did not want to eat, he closed his demanding mouth. Then she put her persistently offered food between his eyes!

In many birds of prey, family, so to speak, possessions are divided into two categories: nesting territory and hunting. As a rule, between them lies no man's land, or no man's land, since the nest is usually not hunted and various small birds nest in safety here.

“Somehow I had to witness one sad picture. A line of telegraph poles stretched along the road in the steppe, and under almost every tenth pole were the remains of an eagle... Why, why were they killed? I received the answer from the driver: “Just like that, sitting on a pole - well, how can you not try a gun!” (V. E. Flint).

“Why, a predator, what a pity for him, harmful ...” - many more will say when it comes to mercy for beaten eagles, hawks, falcons ... A special conversation is needed here.

Watch out for birds of prey!

A few years ago, there was a discussion on the pages of the magazine "Hunting and hunting economy", the significance of which will be fully appreciated only by descendants.

It all started with an article by Professor G.P. Dementyev “Is it necessary to exterminate birds of prey?”.

The professor wrote that in many countries of the world raptors are protected by law. In England, for example, since 1954 it has been forbidden to destroy nests and kill peregrine falcons, merlins, hobby falcons, buzzards, golden eagles and even goshawks. Kestrel and osprey are also protected. Only the sparrowhawk, the destroyer of songbirds, is outlawed, so to speak. Live falcons and hawks for falconry, which is becoming more and more fashionable in the West, are allowed to be caught only with special licenses.

Both in the Middle Ages and in ancient times, people loved and cherished birds of prey. In England and Denmark, for example, the man who killed the falcon had to deal with the executioner. But then, as has happened more than once in history, the pendulum swung in the opposite direction: birds of prey were declared enemies, and they began to ruthlessly exterminate them. Has it been beneficial?

At the end of the last century, in England, in Hampshire, almost all feathered and four-legged "predators" were killed, even hedgehogs and herons! As a result, after

In 1900, partridges and pheasants in those places became ... half as many.

And in the forests, closer to us, similar incidents happened in Russia. In Belovezhskaya Pushcha, its rulers decided to get rid of all hawks, falcons, eagles, owls and other day and night birds of prey. For three years, from 1899 to 1901, 984 predators were destroyed “by all means”. And what? Upland game, wood grouse in particular, has become much smaller.

They also say that at about the same time in the former Smolensk province, Count Uvarov and the manufacturer Khludov, on their estates, "led a campaign of merciless extermination of predators by the forces of local residents." For killed hawks, peasants and rangers were rewarded with money, gunpowder and shot. The beating lasted for three years: almost all predators of all kinds were shot, and ... immediately "the mass death of squirrels, hares, black grouse began."

Both Uvarov and Khludov hurried to correct the situation: again, for money, they began to buy live predators from the peasants, who were caught in neighboring forests, and release them on their estates.

Professor G.P. Dementyev in his article said that the famous falconer Eytermozer noticed that falcons often attack not the nearest bird, but ... an abnormal one that flies differently from others. He decided to check, maybe predators do not grab everyone indiscriminately, but prefer to attack sick birds?

Ten of his falcons Eithermozer began to let loose on the crows.

Birds of prey shot down 136 crows. They were carefully examined: 81 ravens did not find any bodily ailments, but the other 55 clearly did not feel well before they fell into the claws of a falcon.

Then, in the same area, the experimenters themselves got a hundred crows without the help of falcons. They shot everyone indiscriminately: there were 79 healthy people among the hundreds, and 21 sick people, that is, in percentage terms, half that of the falcons.

There can be only one conclusion: falcons clearly prefer to attack sick birds!

Why? Recently, zoologists who have observed other predators - tetrapods and marine ones, have noticed that they also have such a tendency - to hunt sick and wounded animals. Is this a kind of biocenological instinct, that is, an instinct that rises above species interests and ensures the survival of the entire community of species - the biocenosis? Or maybe it's just easier to get sick?

The latter is indisputable: after all, catching birds is not an easy task even for feathered aces. Approximately every two pigeons out of three, on which the peregrine falcon dives, leave unharmed. Only one of the three attacked pigeons falls, cut by his claws.

Zoologist V. M. Gusev observed different types of birds of prey. He calculated that only 213 of the 3441 attacks made before his eyes by predators ended successfully. Lucky for the predator, but not for the prey, of course.

It is clear that feathered pirates prefer to attack sick animals: they are not so attentive, not so fast. They often keep to themselves, alone. Healthy brothers, obeying instinct, usually expel them from the pack. And it is known, it is also experimentally proven that many animals, birds and fish in flocks suffer less losses from predators than those divided into pairs or singles. And the point here is not only in the multiplied vigilance of the animals united in flocks, but also in some special psychological property of the collective, which confuses the attacking enemy. This property is called the confusion effect.

The big question is - to exterminate or protect birds of prey? - There is another very important aspect for us. Destroying sick birds and rodents, predators save us from terrible diseases and epidemics.

So are we right in declaring birds of prey as our enemies? Have we acted wisely so far, ruthlessly exterminating them?

No, it's unreasonable.

Meanwhile, the beating of birds of prey continues.

Some ingrained misconceptions are very difficult for people to get rid of.

For many hunters, a falcon, a meadow harrier, and a mouse-eating buzzard peacefully hovering over a forest are an enemy that cannot count on mercy, and a target for shooting at the target. They shoot at any bird of a predatory appearance, without considering whether it is useful or harmful. Many hunters, I was convinced of this, do not know how, even when picking up, to distinguish a hawk from a kite, remaining naively ignorant that, in addition to hawks and kites, there are also buzzards, upland buzzards, harriers (five different species, from of which only one is dangerous for game!), spotted eagles and various honey buzzards and serpents. For people inexperienced in zoology, these are too academic subtleties.

But out of 46 species of diurnal birds of prey living in our country, only two species - the goshawk and the marsh harrier - are possibly harmful in that they exterminate a lot of game that hunters themselves are not averse to shooting.

In 1962, 1,154,700 "harmful" birds were destroyed in our country. And how many wounded men died! How many dead birds have not been recorded at all!

The discussion of the magazine "Hunting and hunting economy" has borne fruit. On June 1, 1964, it was adequately crowned by Order No. 173 of the Main Directorate of Hunting and Nature Reserves:

“... Given the new data on the biology of birds of prey and the significant benefits they bring in agriculture, hunting, forestry and public health, I order:

To prohibit the shooting, trapping and destruction of the nests of all types of birds of prey and. owls in the hunting grounds of general use throughout the territory of the RSFSR.

Hyena competitors

Vultures, vultures, vultures are competitors of hyenas. Corpses/carrion of all kinds are their food. Soar for hours in the sky, looking out for her. However, American vultures have a different method of searching. Many of them, if not all, are endowed with a rare gift in birds - a good sense of smell. Turkey vultures, for example, fly low over the ground, "sniffing out" where it smells of carrion. They flock to her. Or they sit on a tree and catch the breeze with the same aromas with their nostrils. On the outskirts of cities, near fishing villages, on the sea and river banks, turkey vultures and all sorts of garbage similar to them are eaten. Here, from the borders of Canada (Urubu - from the south of the USA) to Patagonia, both in nature and in human settlements, they play the role of orderlies. Their indiscriminate gluttony is an important factor in urgent measures to clean up the "polluted environment".

The king vulture, a large, very colorful bird, nests in the hollows of tropical forests from Mexico to Uruguay. In the dusk of the selva, in the impenetrable thick of the forest, it is difficult to see even a large carrion from a tree. But the smell gives out, the royal vulture smells it and flies to feed.

Two condors, the Andean and the Californian, are also from a special and ancient family of American vultures, which with the vultures of the Old World have only an external, convergent resemblance - arising from a similar way of life, but not family, not related.

The Andean condor (mountains and coasts of the entire west of South America) is a well-known kidnapper who, in Jules Verne's novel, carried Robert away in his claws. (Need I say that in real life such a burden is too much for him!) Male condors have a comb on their foreheads, sort of like a rooster, a bare head and neck, like all American and "old-world" vultures, and a white collar around the neck. The condor lives both high in the mountains (up to 7 thousand meters) and near the sea, where it picks up dead fish, pecks at the carcasses of dead seals, whales, steals eggs and chicks from petrels and cormorants. It also attacks live vicuñas, young llamas and deer.

Nests in rocks. Rarely, two eggs lie on a loose bed of branches, usually on a bare stone. But even a few twigs laid somehow is already an achievement; other American vultures, except perhaps only the urubu, do not make egg litters. They incubate directly on bare ground, a rock or on a half-rotten hollow tree.

Gifs in a command pose: "Everyone disinfect!"

The California condor, black with a black collar around its neck instead of white, and without a crest on its head, formerly lived throughout North America, from Canada to Florida. Now there are hardly more than forty of these birds left in Southern California. They were exterminated, they died from poisons put by pastoralists in the corpses of cows and sheep, intended for wolves and coyotes.

They breed once every two years: one egg, rarely two, the female condor will hatch during this time. The chick is fed for six months, and then for more than a year, adult birds “baby” with it, protect it, and feed it. It grows slowly, quite adult - only at the age of six.

Places where Californian condors nest are now under protection. But the trouble is that very far, for 80-90 kilometers, these large birds fly away for food and, of course, die in search raids under shots and from poison.

Back in the ice age, a condor lived in the mountains of Nevada and California, called "an incredibly monstrous bird" - five meters in wingspan! There were no such giants, except for the Pteranodon lizard and one extinct albatross, among the creatures flying above the earth either before or after.

16 species of vultures of the Old World and birds close to them are included by taxonomists in the hawk family. Their closest relatives are eagles, kites, harriers and buzzards. Outwardly, however, the vultures stand out from this relative: the head and neck are bare or slightly covered with down, the collar on the bottom of the neck is downy or made of sharp long feathers, the beak is massive, only the vulture is long and thin. A powerful beak is needed to tear large carrion. Featherless heads and necks, so as not to get very dirty in the devoured innards. The collar on the bottom of the neck is for the same hygiene purposes: it traps the blood flowing down the neck. (Some kind of functional semblance of our eyebrows, protecting our eyes from sweat on our foreheads!)

But still, the feather gets dirty, so vultures love to swim. They are clean. Carrion is often eaten already so rotten that any other animal, even a hyena, would die after eating it. The glands of their stomach secrete juices that neutralize cadaveric poison. It is clear that their unattractive food is teeming with billions of bacteria. In the ultraviolet of the sun's rays, which kills microbes, the vultures disinfect their plumage, ruffling it and half-spreading their wings. Either one side or the other is exposed to the rays of the daylight. A special command posture encourages all birds in a group or flock to take sunbaths. It only takes one vulture, fluffing up, to raise its wings, and now others follow this visible command: “Everyone, disinfect!”

They look for prey not by instinct, like their American counterparts. Visible at high altitude from the ground, only black dots soar, but everyone notices: who on earth has already died, who is dying. They fall like stones from the heights of the clouds. If the animal dies, they do not finish it off, but sit around and patiently wait. (Of course, if the animal is large; small ones - hares, marmots, turtles - are killed alive and healthy.)

For such cases, open spaces are needed, with a good view from above: plateaus, steppes. There the vultures take their tribute from the all-powerful death.

The black vulture is found from Southern Europe, the Crimea, the Caucasus to Central Asia and the rocks of Mongolia. Griffon vulture - in the same place, but also further south: to India and North Africa. Snow vulture - in the highlands of the Himalayas, Pamir and Tien Shan. Eared vultures - in Africa and India ...

The vultures are smaller than the vultures and lighter: light brown, the head, neck and collar are white, the nostrils are slit-like, the vultures are round. They nest on rocks in groups, somewhat colonial.

Black vultures alone, or rather in pairs, build their huge nests on trees up to a centner in weight. Where there are no trees, they do not nest. When the north of Africa was depleted of forests, black vultures began to die out here, and it seems that they are no longer there. But it is surprising that in the east, in Mongolia and the Gobi, black vultures have adapted to breed on the rocks. They are afraid of man, but they boldly drive every animal and bird from carrion, even eagles and wolves.

I wonder if the marabou, distributing blows to the right and left, would be able to disperse them with a club-beak, like the eared vultures of Africa? "Eared" (they have ear-shaped red "earrings" on the sides of their bare neck) are not as bulky and heavy as black vultures, although their wingspan is similar.

“When the steppe fire drove the ostriches from their nests, their eggs were not damaged. White-headed and eared vultures tried to crack them with strong blows of their beaks, but to no avail.

Then two vultures flew in. At first, they also tried to break through the shells of eggs with their beaks. When none of this happened, they found stones weighing 100-300 grams, took them in their beaks. Stretching out vertically, raising their heads high with stones clamped in their beaks, they then threw them directly at the eggs lying at their feet. After four or twelve blows the shell broke, and the feast began" (Jane van Lovik-Goodall and Hugo van Lovi k).

It would be hard to believe it, but the researchers photographed all stages of the labor process: how a vulture flies and carries a rather weighty stone in its beak, how, stretching upwards, it throws it on an ostrich egg, how the egg pricks and “the feast begins”.

The simplest tools - stones and sticks are taken in beaks, trunks, paws, jaws by various animals: elephants, monkeys, sea otters, burrowing wasps ... A woodpecker from the Galapagos Islands with a thorn or twig takes out beetle larvae from under the bark. The vulture, it turns out, pricks ostrich eggs with a stone. The Australian crested kite bombards emu eggs with stones (from the air!) Probably, over time, other craftsmen of this kind will open.

There are two types of vultures: brown (Africa) and common (Africa, southern Europe, Crimea, Caucasus, Central and South Asia).

Two birds from the vulture subfamily deviated greatly from the main line in their tastes - the palm vulture (some researchers rank it among the eagles) and the bearded vulture.

The first feeds mainly on the fruits of some palms: taking it in its paw, it rips off the shell with its beak, eats the kernels and feeds the chicks with them. He usually nests on palm trees. Beautiful black and white bird. It lives in the mantras and forests of Africa, usually near rivers and sea shores, where it also collects live and dead fish, crayfish, and mollusks.

The bearded lamb eats a lot of carrion. He especially loves bones: he even swallows whole cow vertebrae! From skulls and tubular bones, he extracts the brain, breaking them against stones and then deftly wielding his "special device tongue." In some places, in Greece for example, the main subject of his hunting desires are turtles. He processes them with claws, beak, tongue, like bones. When it is not possible to open the shell of a large turtle, he throws it from a height against the stones.

He steals little lambs from gaping shepherds. They say that on dangerous mountain paths he pushes sheep, goats, chamois, dogs (and even children and adults, which hardly happens) into the abyss with the beat of his wings.

Why this vulture eagle was called a lamb is now clear to us. He has a bunch of feathers under his beak, like a goatee. Hence the "beard".

Bearded vultures nest high in the mountains: in rock niches, in caves. Branch nest. It happens that old bones are stacked among them. Lined with dry grass and sheep's wool for warmth and softness. Two eggs, but the chick is usually one, the second dies. The female incubates, perhaps a little and the male. The chicks are fed not with belching from the goiter, like all vultures, but with small pieces of meat.

In Southern Europe (Pyrenees, Balkans), in Eastern and Southern Africa, there are few bearded men left. There are more of them in the Caucasus, in Central and Central Asia. The birds are large, from a condor, but their cry is not “squeaky” for their height - a low whistle.

A strange phenomenon has long been noticed: rusty-brown bearded vultures, having lived for a certain time in zoos, suddenly turn white after molting. It turns out that their feathers are stained in brown tones by iron oxides. In the niches of the rocks, where bearded men nest and sleep in the wild, there is a lot of dust from weathered rocks rich in these oxides. When they tried to pour sand on the floor of the cages with approximately the same chemical composition as the dust on the rocks, the whitish bearded men who slept lying on the sand soon noticeably “rusted”.

hawksbill

Hawks have a somewhat different structure of beak and claws than falcons. On the cutting edge of the falcon's beak is a small, sharp, clearly marked "tooth". Most hawks don't have it. Only in those who hunt insects and gnaw hard chitinous shells, the upper beak with one or even two falcon-type teeth.

The falcons have long fingers, and the claws are relatively short, the same on all fingers. Except for the rear: its claw is somewhat longer than the others. In hawks, the claws of the hind toe and the front inner are much longer than the other two. In a stranglehold, they act like sharp pincers.

Accordingly, the methods of attack are somewhat different. Hawks grab prey with their claws and strangle them, squeezing them with “pincers”.

Falcons, especially large falcons, diving from a height at a speed of hundreds of kilometers per hour, try to cut their prey with a blow from their hind claws, while their paws are tightly pressed to their belly. They grab on the fly and with claws, squeezing in them, they hammer the back of the victim’s head with their beak: the “tooth” on the beak is an additional point! - helps to break through the bones of the skull.

In the hawk family, in addition to the vultures, with which we are already familiar, there are seven more subfamilies: crepuscular, or insectivorous, kites - 8 species, honey beetles - 12 species; real kites - 10 species; hawks - 52 species; buzzards, eagles, sea eagles, harpies - 94 species; harriers - 8-9 species and serpent eagles - 14 species.

Not all dusky kites hunt in the twilight of the early morning and evening hours, but only a few. For example, black-winged (Africa, India) and wide-mouthed (Africa, Indonesia). The "broad-short" cut of the beak is large - up to the very eyes, like a nightjar! The eyes are large, there is something owlish in his "face". It grabs bats and insects with its claws on the fly, but on the fly it tears into pieces and eats.

This is the habit of all twilight kites in general. They eat only small animals, mostly insects (the epithet "insectivores" is perhaps more suitable for them than "twilight", because some real falcons hunt at dusk! - however, both names are not very successful). African fork-tailed kites, like crows, in friendly flocks attack the nests of eagles, vultures and steal, apparently, their chicks.

Insectivorous kites line their nests with green leaves and grass - from the inside and often from the outside. The habit is the same in buzzards, some hawks, eagles and honey beetles.

We have two honey buzzards in the USSR. Common, east to Altai, and Siberian crested.

The honey buzzard looks like a buzzard, but adult males have a gray “cap” on their heads. The chest and belly are streaked with transverse-brown speckles, buzzards have longitudinal strokes. It soars a little when it hunts, but does not lek. From a tree or a low flight, he will notice a nest of wasps or bumblebees, ruin it with his paws and eat the baby and the attacking stingers. Beetles, caterpillars, spiders, worms, grasshoppers, mice, frogs, lizards, snakes, blueberries, lingonberries also eat.

Getting to the bumblebee nests, the honey buzzard sometimes digs such a deep hole that, digging in it, it does not see or hear a person passing by (bumblebees buzz around - they drown out hearing!). Here you can catch it with your hands.

The honey buzzard asked a riddle: why are all the bees, bumblebees and wasps in his stomach without stings? Maybe, before eating, he bites off their pathetic "endings"? But the Malayan honey buzzard was observed: it swallows with a sting. After killing the bird, they opened the stomach and found there many wasps without a stinger. The riddle, therefore, is not solved.

Honey beetles winter in Africa, fly far - to the very south. They come back to us late. Only in June in the nests of eggs: 2, rarely 3-4. The trees are already covered with foliage, it is difficult to notice the nest. It is also “decorated” with green branches. As soon as they wither, the birds bring fresh ones.

But their sharp “tech-tech” cry betrays them, similar to that of a redstart, only louder, even reminiscent of the distant rattle of a motorcycle. At this time, honey beetles sit a lot on the nest, even if there are no eggs in it yet. Or play high in the sky. The male soars higher and higher above the female. It dives down, not reaching it a little, turns around and up again.

Together they take turns incubating, feeding the chicks together. Wasp larvae are usually brought in the beak, other insects - in the goiter.

Feathered and able to fly, one and a half month old chicks sit for a long time on the edge of the nest and feed on what their parents bring. Usually only the mother now supplies them with provisions. The male left the family and is busy with his own affairs. Quite small honey beetles are already good diggers: they dig the nest litter, as if they can’t wait to get to the bumblebees as soon as possible!

Above the steppe, field, meadow, it flutters its wings, as if suspended on an invisible thread, it will fly in a fast flight and again “hang” above the ground with frequent, frequent wing beats - a small falcon that parents bring. Usually only the mother now supplies them with provisions. The male left the family and is busy with his own affairs. Quite small honey beetles are already good diggers: they dig the nest litter, as if they can’t wait to get to the bumblebees as soon as possible!

How often people make mistakes, unfairly considering all birds of prey to be their enemies, is proved by the example of honey beetles who fell victim to this mistake.

One was noticed on a dead hare and, having decided that he had killed the hare and was eating it, they shot him. They opened the stomach of a honey beetle: full of cadaverous fly larvae!

Another was shot while walking a pheasant. They thought he got in here to steal pheasants. In vain they killed a useful bird: the honey buzzard hunted grasshoppers ...

Unfortunately, in flight, the honey buzzard looks a bit like a hawk. And for this he is mistakenly killed. But look at the long tail of the bird: three wide dark transverse stripes distinguish it from all predators flying over your head. Not enough of this? Pretty clear longitudinal stripes on the bottom of the wings will also help identify the honey buzzard.

Unfortunately, among the people, not only ours, but also the German (Oskar Heinroth regrets this), perhaps, and in any other, every bird of prey is all "hawk" and "kite". But both of them are rarely seen. Especially the hawk. With quick flapping of short wings, it will cross the clearing, flash in speckles and hide behind the trees.

If a "hawk" soars in circles over the forest, especially near the edges and clearings, shouts nasally, loudly "kya" or "kiii" in mid-flight, and its tail is cut off straight from behind, without clipping, it is brown itself, then this "hawk" is a buzzard mouse-eater. A very useful and, perhaps, the most common bird of prey in the Moscow region. It lives in Europe and the forest-steppe zone of Asia.

A lot of walking on the ground, catching mice, lizards, frogs. Or hovering over the forest. The wings are wide, at the ends they are “spread out” like an eagle, and the tail is short, spread like a fan - this is a spotted eagle. It is also useful in forestry!

Above the fields, meadows fly low (raising their wings up!) White below, “gray” above field and steppe harriers. Their females are brown. Mouse-eaters. Useful. If over damp lowlands, reeds, they themselves are brown, often with buffy “caps” - swamp harriers. These are recognized as harmful: they destroy waterfowl.

Above the steppe, field, meadow flutters its wings, as if suspended on an invisible thread, it will fly in a fast flight and again “hang” above the ground with frequent, frequent flapping of its wings - a small kestrel falcon. Useful. Mice and insects are the main food.

And where is the kite, the notorious exterminator of poultry? Above the shores of large lakes and rivers, it usually soars in circles. Brown and easily recognizable: the only bird of prey in our latitudes with a notched tail at the end. The notch is small in the black kite and rather deep in the red kite - a triangular notch on the back edge of the tail.

The red kite nests in Europe, in northern Africa, in Asia Minor, Iran, in our country - in the Baltic states, in western Ukraine, in the Caucasus. Black - almost throughout the Union, and outside of Europe - in Africa, South Asia and Australia.

Kites feed only on carrion, fish and small animals - from insects to chicks. Large (and medium!) birds, neither domestic nor wild, are not beaten. The kite predator is very relative. He often, like the honey buzzard, falls into the claws of a hawk and an owl. Useful bird.

Outside of our country, kites have about a dozen relatives. The already mentioned Australian crested kite (bombards emu eggs with stones!) And two types of South American slug-eaters stand out as special talents. One slug-eater (dark gray, red-legged, red-eyed, with red wax and "bridle") also nests in Florida, Cuba, Central America.

The beak of the slug-eater is quite long and thin, with a sharp hook at the end. This tool is of special use: slipping it under the horn cap, the kite removes the snails from the shells. Only them, in general, and eats. Snails are large, pomaces and snails, freshwater, in drought in the mornings and evenings they crawl out of the water on different plants. This is where kites collect them. It is usually processed in selected places for this: the ground there is strewn with hundreds of empty shells.

In Florida, many swamps have been drained, there is nowhere for snails to live, and slug-eating kites are dying out. There are many more in South America. They nest in colonies.

We have two hawks in the Moscow region: a large goshawk and a smaller copy of it - a small sparrow hawk. The female has a brown back, the male has a gray one. Both are forest birds, in general, and their ranges are similar: Europe, Asia to the east - to Kamchatka, to the south - to a latitude drawn approximately at the southern borders of Turkey. The goshawk also has North America, the sparrowhawk has Africa. From the northern regions, hawks fly to the south for the winter. In countries with moderately cool winters, they are sedentary all year round or wander south.

There are dangers along the way. Young hawks are killed by old ones, they fall into the claws of eagle owls, eagles. And sparrowhawks are sometimes slaughtered by buzzards, wild cats and martens strangle.

Dark, distinct streaks, crossing the chest and belly of the hawk in transverse rows, distinguish it from the birds of prey of our latitudes. In young hawks, the stripes are longitudinal. Yastre-by-tyuviks living in Central Asia and in the south of European Russia, also with transverse streaks. In the north-east of Siberia, white goshawks are also not uncommon.

Buzzards, or buzzards, have large relatives. For example: a terry-legged buzzard comes to us to winter from the tundra and forest-tundra (legs are feathered to the toes). The Far Eastern hawk, buzzard eagles, all eagles and sea eagles in general - about a hundred species in the buzzard subfamily. From the tundra to the tropics, in the plains and mountains, in forests and steppes, in deserts and swamps - these birds live in different landscapes and climates.

Their prey is diverse: snails, worms, insects, mice, birds ... Let's put ellipsis here, list for a long time, and end with the largest victims - young deer and small antelopes, which are attacked by eagles on occasion.

But also fish, and sea birds, which are beaten by the sea eagles.

Do not forget sloths and monkeys - a delicacy of South American harpies and other crested tropical eagles. These birds are special. Looks fierce and scary. The power of the claws, the strength of the muscles, perhaps, will surpass all feathered predators. They are heavier than golden eagles and many eagles, but not Kamchatka. There were half-pood harpies. They drag piglets and dogs from the villages. They strangle sloths, monkeys, noses, agoutis ... Their flight in the thick of the forest is noted by the frightened cries of howler monkeys, capuchins, parrots. Courageously attacking, harpies drive even a person from the nest.

The nest is large, up to two meters in diameter, lined with abundant greenery: leaves and moss. Built on a mighty tree near a river or stream. And in this gigantic nest the harpies incubate one yellowish egg.

Feathers of harpies - an exchange coin among the inhabitants of the wild forest. An Indian who kills or captures a harpy "gets everything he needs for life."

At least 6 more species of crested eagles challenge the dubious honor of the fighters of our blood relatives from the harpy. Two South American ones: the killer eagle, an inhabitant of the lowland forests, and Isidore's eagle. This one in the mountain forests, in the Andes, replacing the harpy, hunts monkeys, sloths, raccoons, porcupines, parrots and other similar game.

Two African. The crowned eagle pursues monkeys and small antelopes in dense forests, and the eagle-fighter in the savannahs does not allow old baboons to take a peaceful nap, threatening their little children with death. He is the strongest eagle in Africa. When it soars over the savannah, jackals, young antelopes, monitor lizards, guinea fowls and all other not very large birds run in fear and hide from it.

For their outward resemblance to a harpy, for their special tastes for monkey meat, these crested eagles could be called African harpies, although they are not only of a different species, but also of a genus. And Asian harpies - two more birds of prey: the Philippine monkey-eater and the New Guinean harpy-eagle. The first, unfortunately, is almost exterminated - only about a hundred of them remain. The International Union of Zoos has decided not to buy more of these eagles from Filipinos. Perhaps such a belated, however, measure will at least a little help save the endangered species.

New Guinea "harpies" nest in impenetrable mountain forests. For lack of monkeys in that country, they are forced to be content with the meat of marsupials (couscus, tree kangaroos), paradise and other birds.

Of the real eagles, from the noble family of golden eagles, the Cape eagle (South and East Africa) also strangles and eats baboons on occasion. Of course, the golden eagle would hardly have resisted such a temptation if monkeys were found in its homeland, in North America, Europe and Asia. In northwest Africa, the golden eagle meets the magots, but nothing seems to be known about their relationship.

These nests are imposing structures - sometimes two meters high, three meters wide, more than one centner of branches is laid in them. Eagle nests that take decades to build weigh a ton!

The nests of many eagles and buzzards are decorated with green branches - coniferous or deciduous. Disguise? They think not. Apparently, this is their marriage ritual. Greenery is a sign of welcome, a kind of wedding offering that stimulates the nest-building zeal of feathered spouses. Spotted eagles are forest birds. But if they happen to nest on slopes in the steppe, where there are no trees nearby, they fly far to bring a pine branch and stick it into the nest. Steppe eagles, long since lost all memory of forests and green branches, do not fly after them. But what happened here, it seems, is something like a "substitution reaction": the replacement of branches with various other objects that are easy to find in the steppe.

“Species that do not roost in the midst of greenery and build nests before the semi-desert and desert blooms are brought into their buildings - perhaps as a “landscaping ersatz”? - bones, rags, dried animal droppings and the like" (Wolfgang Fischer).

Unfortunately, there are few eagles left everywhere. In Europe, where records of golden eagles have been kept for a long time, only a few pairs of them nest: in Scandinavia - about a hundred, in the Alps - about 150, in Germany, in Bavaria - only seven. In Scotland and Ireland, the calculation would probably give the same dismal figures.

The burial ground, which the Germans call the royal eagle, is smaller than the golden eagle. Prefers plains and forest-steppes (Mediterranean, Ukraine, Crimea, Caucasus, Central and Western Asia, southern Siberia).

The steppe eagle is even smaller. Its habitats are the steppes and semi-deserts of Africa and Asia.

Eagles are eagle-like, broad-winged, white-tailed, often white-headed or white-shouldered large birds of prey. Nests by the sea or on the banks of large rivers and lakes. They hunt for fish, snatching it out of the water with their claws, and for sea birds.

About ten species in countries around the world. There are three species of us: the white-tailed eagle (Europe, Asia - from the tundra to Turkey and Kazakhstan), the long-tailed eagle (Lower Volga region, from here the northern border stretches east to Mongolia, the southern border - Central India, Burma) and the Kamchatka, or Steller's sea eagle (Far East).

Serpent-eagles do eat snakes, even large and venomous ones. Their paws are protected by thick horny shields: bite - break your teeth! They tear the snakes with claws, beaks, bounce, soaring up, attack again until they exhaust the reptile so that it can no longer bite. Serpent-eaters also hunt other animals, but they prefer snakes and lizards to everyone.

They live in Africa and South Asia, one species - in Europe and in the south of the USSR - the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Siberia.

The buffoon eagle, or buffoon, famous for its virtuoso mating flight, is also a snake-eater. Savannah and. prefers the steppes to dense forests, therefore it does not live in the Congo basin. Tokuya, writes such pirouettes in the sky, as if showing circus numbers. Somersaults no worse than a tumbler: dead loops, sharp turns, "barrels" - and other aerobatics and aerial balancing act. It flaps its wings loudly, making a lot of noise.

The nest, decorated with greenery, arranges on a tree, usually at the edge of a clearing or path. Flying up to it, the birds for another hundred meters descend to the ground and fly low along the clearing or path. Mysterious habit...

The only large egg is incubated by the female.

The male feeds her. Brings her, and later the chicks, many different snakes: small ones in the goiter, large ones in the beak. Like a long mustache, a snake intercepted in half dangles under the head of a flying eagle.

falcons

In the selva, in the tropical wilds of South America, forest, or laughing, falcons live. With a deft, nimble flight, they dart in the thick of branches, jump through the trees, like monkeys, without even spreading their wings. Either by flight or by a quick run along the ground they pursue snakes, and lizards, and various other living creatures. A poisonous snake will definitely bite off its head and carry it neutralized to the nest.

And their nests are in hollows, in rock niches. Usually only one egg per nest. In the evening and morning twilight, falcon pairs shout in a duet “ha-ha-ha”. Their wild laughter frightens tired travelers wandering through the wilds of the swampy forest. The voices of other forest falcons sound like a terrible moan of an exhausted person.

In the same way, running on the ground and low flying, but not in the forests, but in the pampas and steppes, on the coasts of the seas and rivers, the caracara, or vulture falcons, are also looking for food. Their food is carrion, all sorts of garbage near villages, lizards, worms, insects, small birds and animals.

Carancho is perhaps the most common and largest of them. Black on top, variegated, white-cheeked, with a naked red "face", with a small dark crest on the head. From the south of the USA to Patagonia and the Falkland Islands, this vulture falcon inhabits vast areas.

Chimango is smaller, not so bright, brown, with streaks on the chest. (The cuckoo duck often throws its eggs into its nests!) From Brazil to Patagonia, it collects all edible trifles and carrion on the ground. Where herds graze, where the steppe is plowed, there are chimangos .. Following the plow, they pick up earthworms like rooks. On the backs of cows, ticks and gadfly larvae are pecked out of the wool. Both caranchos and chimangos nest in trees, rarely on the ground.

Four species of mountain caracara live in the Andes. Two types of forest - in the Brazilian selva. In total, there are nine species of vulture falcons.

Forest vultures hunt in the same place as the laughing falcons, and “laugh” like: “ha-ha”, and then a drawn-out “cocoa-ka-ka-ka-ka-kakao!” announces forests full of mysterious sounds. This is the cry of a red-throated caracara. I ate juicy fruits, ate a couple of beetles, shouted and flew off for a special delicacy. Few dare to keep him company when he finds his delicacy. I found a nest of large black wasps in the foliage. He boldly approached, hung upside down, clinging his claws to the walls of the nest, stuck his head into the hole, from which a swarm of wasps rushed at him. And he eats their baby, climbing up to his shoulders into a wasp house, and, apparently, does not suffer much from stinging bites.

Pygmy falcons are just as fast-winged and brave as their big relatives, gyrfalcons and peregrine falcons, hobby falcons and saker falcons. Insects are their daily prey. But in swift attacks they overtake and beat small birds, which are sometimes larger than themselves. They are the smallest birds of prey on earth. Only the Argentine dwarf falcon, nicknamed in his homeland for his courage and agility as the king of birds, is a little smaller than the kestrel. All others will fit in the palm of your hand - 14-23 centimeters from the head to the tip of the tail. For one of them "muti" - a resident of the Himalayan foothills - this comparison will be especially true.

“The name “muti” means “handful”. This is explained by the fact that in India it was used to hunt quails. The falcon was kept in a handful and thrown to the prey ”(Professor G.P. Dementiev).

One pygmy falcon lives in South America, the second species lives in Africa, five others in Southeast Asia, from the Himalayan mountains to the Philippines and Kalimantan. Everyone loves open spaces of plains and foothills. They nest in hollows.

Real falcons. Let's start with ours. If you build them, so to speak, in terms of height, then there will be a gyrfalcon in front, then - a saker falcon, a peregrine falcon, a hobby, then - almost equal: a kestrel, a steppe kestrel, a derbnik, a falcon. Other 20 species of the same genus "falco" - "falcon" - not named here, live in different countries of the world, some in our country.

Narrow wings, fast flight, frequent wing beats, a tooth on the cutting edge of the upper beak - falcon features (we will not talk about more special ones). Falcons nest on trees, on rocks, and in some places on the ground (peregrine falcon, merlin, red-footed falcon, kestrel). Even sometimes in burrows: both kestrels, common and steppe. There are 2-6 eggs in the nest, either only females incubate, or the male takes a feasible part in this matter. This is according to some of our authors, many foreign ethologists assert that among all falcons, hawks, and, apparently, among typical birds of prey in general, only the female incubates, the male brings prey to her and the chicks. When the chicks grow up, the female also hunts.

All falcons incubate for about a month. Four-week-old chicks in small species or seven-week-old in large ones leave the nest, at first moving only to neighboring branches.

The peregrine falcon is powerful-breasted, with clear elongated black spots under the eyes (“whiskers”!) Nests almost all over the world, from the Arctic to Australia, from Alaska east to Chukotka, from the tundra to the African savannas. The mentioned "whiskers" distinguish it well from other falcons, except for the hobby, but it is smaller and with red "trousers" - leg feathers and under-tails.

For the winter, from the northern regions of their range, peregrine falcons fly far to the south, over 10 thousand kilometers - to Ceylon, New Guinea, South Africa, and North American ones - to Brazil and Argentina.

Falcons are hardly inferior to peregrine falcons in their autumn-spring migrations. Even the Siberian ones, nesting up to Lake Baikal, winter in South Africa, destroying a lot of locusts there.

Salsan almost always kills game only on the fly and almost always only birds: from swallows and swifts to herons and geese. It strikes with its claws, diving from a height - it falls, leaving a hundred meters behind its tail every second! (However, some researchers believe that such a high dive speed is an exaggeration.)

Hobbies breed in temperate and warm zones of Europe and Asia, south to Afghanistan, and in places in Africa, north of the Sahara. He has the same well-marked "whiskers" as those of the peregrine falcon. It is also fast and also catches various medium-sized birds on the fly. Even swifts manage to catch. Insects are caught in the air with their claws and eat without landing.

Other falcons, both in the air and on the ground, beat and strangle various birds, rodents (gyrfalcons and saker falcons, even hares!), reptiles, and insects with their claws. The kestrel, popularly called the shaker for its exploratory flight in place - hanging with frequent flapping of wings - almost all of its prey: insects, moles, shrews, lizards, small birds, but mostly, up to 85 percent, mice - is enough from the ground.

The saker falcon is a falcon, in general, of the steppe and desert plains. He lives in the mountains, but not in the forests.

Gyrfalcon, the largest of the falcons - weight up to two kilograms, wingspan up to 135 centimeters - a resident of the polar tundra and forest tundra. Gyrfalcons were especially valued before as birds of prey, and especially white ones, with dark stripes. But there are also dark, brown. The peregrine falcon, the saker falcon, both of our hawks, and even the golden eagle, also glorified their names in the falconry of former times. They lived with a good falconer for 20-25 years.

Falcons usually do not build nests themselves, they occupy strangers - crows and other birds. When nesting in rock niches, a loose "platform" of haphazardly folded branches serves as a Spartan bedding for eggs. As a rule, they nest alone, only a few in small colonies: for example, steppe kestrels and alets, or Eleonora's falcons.

Similar to a hobby, but a larger alet, its second name “Eleanor’s falcon” is in honor of Princess Eleonora d "Arborea, who at the end of the 14th century ruled most of the island of Sardinia. She issued humane laws for those times, in which, in addition to purely administrative matters , it was prescribed to protect hawks and falcons.

Up to fifty couples in close proximity settle alets on the coastal rocks of the Mediterranean islands: on small ones in the Aegean Sea and on large ones - Crete, Cyprus, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, on the coast of Morocco, somewhere in Italy and the Canary Islands. The chicks are hatched late, in August, not out of carelessness, but in accordance with local conditions: just as the strings of migratory birds stretch south over the Mediterranean Sea, the chicks will grow up. At this time, it will be easier to saturate them: game in abundance brings down from the north!

Hundreds of alet males fly out to meet her early in the morning and, lining up in the sky in a wide and “high” front, form a living network two kilometers wide, a kilometer high. In the clawed "cells" of this network, more than sixty species of birds die - shrikes, warblers, warblers, redstarts, nightingales, larks ...

It has been calculated: approximately 5,000 Mediterranean alets in two months, while hatching and feeding chicks, kill about 1,250,000 migratory songbirds!

The rest of the time they feed on beetles, cicadas, locusts and ... bats, because, like twilight falcons, falcons and hobby falcons, they also hunt at dawn.

In autumn, alets fly away to spend the winter in Madagascar and its neighboring islands off the coast of Africa.

The laws of Eleanor have long been forgotten, and the fishermen, fed up with fish, destroy the nests of the alets at the end of the summer. Chicks are fried and eaten, why? shit for a treat. Airplanes are dying...

Family life of falcons? Hobbies will tell us about it, the fastest of the fastest, which Niko Tinbergen, the now universally recognized zoopsychologist, ethologist and excellent writer, has carefully observed for hundreds of hours.

So, faggots...

The beginning of July is vacation time. But not in the world of birds: responsible days for birds. In millions of nests, the chicks have already fledged and grown up. To feed their insatiable mouths - all the forces of the winged parents are given to this cause.

On a pine tree, in a nest under a chaeglochika, the shell of an egg crunched. The first black-eyed "freak", dressed in white fluff, got out of the wreckage of a fragile cradle. The predatory beak is unreasonably large for his mindless head. The thin neck, straining, barely holds the combined weight of the head and beak. It wobbles with effort.

After the first, others appeared: in our habitual view, they are ugly, awkward, absurd. It is incomprehensible what mysterious physiological alchemy then turns them into such excellent birds!

According to the law of nature prescribed for birds of prey, the mother is always with them. The father is hunting.

He, intoxicated with luck, shouts “kyu-ku-ku” far from the nest, a kilometer away. She dozed, covering her chameleons with her wings, but, imagine, she heard. I recognized a familiar voice. Went to meet. They approached two hundred meters from the nest. When he slowed down the flight, she, by a technique that had already been tested more than once in life (and in spring courtship games), turned over her back down, stretched out her paws, and took the prey from his claws into her own. On the fly, in a quick turn!

She sat down on the bough, where she had a “plucking point”. She pulled out all the feathers that the male did not have time or was too lazy to pluck. I ate a piece of not the most first-class meat. The best share was carried into the nest.

“She carefully tore off tiny fibers of meat, bent down and patiently held them in her beak in front of the chicks ... tiny dangling heads reached for the mother's beak weakly and clumsily ... After several, and sometimes many failures, one of the chicks managed to grab the meat and greedily swallowed, falling to the bottom of the nest from incredible effort ”(Niko Tinbergen).

She fed everyone, ate herself and dozed off. How long? Does the fast-winged husband often disturb her drowsy peace? It depends on how skilled a hunter he is. Some Hobbies manage to return with prey after four minutes, others only after four hours! And they hunt, in general, in the same places. On average, after 77 minutes, meal after meal follows in families of hobbyists who have come to love songbirds.

Few fed on insects. These, perhaps, did not “lunch”, but hastily “snacked” after three or four minutes, eating 17-18 dragonflies per hour. They lived in close proximity and hunted, where there were equally larks and dragonflies, but such a dissimilarity in family traditions ... "it only remained to conclude that these couples had different tastes."

Now let's follow the hunters to where, guided by "different tastes", Hobbies get food for chicks and females.

"Black dots" they hovered over the plain, "in the dazzling blue of the sky." Only through binoculars it can be seen how, in a quick turn, in a short chase, stretching out their clawed paw, the birds grab “something tiny”. The paw then reaches for the beak, brings the caught. Leftovers fall down. They picked them up from the ground and were very surprised: the heads, wings of dung beetles.

“Practically a whole beetle, only without the abdomen, which was the only thing that interested the hobbyists ... We still did not know that dung beetles on warm days circle high in the air for hours. I still don’t understand what they are doing there” (Niko-Tinbergen).

Hobbyists catch beetles, one might say, in passing, without effort - with a slight wave of the wing, they slightly change the course of flight and put out their paw to grab. Dragonfly - the target is more nimble. They dive on it, pressing their wings, with a protracted, 100-200 meters, sheer throw. Like a swallow or a swift, which the hobbies beat, falling from a height with black lightning. Swift turns of a second chase - and the victim is in the claws: "you hear the sound of a blow a hundred meters away."

The rate of fall is enormous, and it is probably not difficult for physicists to calculate it, taking into account the force of the earth's attraction and air resistance. It's probably about 300 kilometers per hour. After all, already at the end of the dive, in horizontal flight, another hobby flies rushing, leaving 40 meters behind it every second.

Add to this excellent hearing (we already know how sensitive he is) and excellent eyesight (a dragonfly can be seen for 200, a lark - for 1000 meters!). What else does a winged hunter need so that his children do not starve?

All small birds (swifts and swallows are no exception) hide in horror, lurk in the bushes, only they see a diving silhouette in the sky.

Here's what's interesting. When the Hobbies soar calmly in the air, the swallows, three hundred meters below them, catch insects without fear, obviously believing that they will always have time to escape. But as soon as they see a throw down, even a play one, they immediately fly away under the protection of trees. Not just the appearance of a predator, but the manner of its flight frightens them.

In the list of victims, in the tribute that the impetuous Hobbies collect from the fields and forests, three points draw attention. First, a very large proportion of larks, swallows and swifts. Almost half, according to other observations, more than two thirds of all birds caught. Only larks, according to Niko Tinbergen's calculations, the hobby family eats an average of 330 pieces during five months of stay in our latitudes. Secondly, moles, shrews, mice and other wingless animals. It would seem that it was previously thought that Hobbies, like peregrine falcons, do not take prey from the ground. New observations have introduced certain amendments to this, in general, correct rule. Gliding to the ground, they often grab both those and other careless mice. Perhaps another method is practiced, which is customary among frigates. Neighbor robbery.

“Suddenly, a female Hobby flew over me ... Having flown about five hundred meters, she rolled over on her back and took the prey from the male, so it seemed to me. However, the next second I discovered that the second bird was a male kestrel. Kestrels are not accustomed to passing prey in the air, they do this by landing on a branch, and therefore this male, quite naturally, did not open its claws. screams... The monkey rushed straight to her nest with the mouse taken away, and the male kestrel dejectedly flew towards his mate with empty claws.For several minutes this latter followed him, loudly demanding her dinner, which, in my opinion, was on her part rather tactless" (Nico Tinbergen).

The third item of special importance is moths, or rather, pine hawks, on the Hobby menu. "We have to assume that Hobbies catch them at dawn and at dusk." This means that they fly out before dawn and return after sunset, when black evocator eyes in their nests demand: “There is, there is, there is ...”

They have already grown up, the owners of these commanding eyes. For ten days they have already been looking at everything and everyone from top to bottom: from the nest on. pine. Delicately brought pieces are not enough for them. They want to destroy their prey. Instinct takes practice. They rush to the mother, knocking her down. Avoiding "rudeness", she now simply throws what she brings into the nest: let them tear themselves.

Another month passed, they got out of the nest, sat on the knots. "Every day they expanded the area of ​​their walks through the pine branches."

"Walks" is said boldly, rather something like crawling, climbing, flitting - all words are unsuccessful. But here is an accurate picture of their "walks" in the pine.

“A young Hobby was trying to climb a branch only a few centimeters higher than the one on which he was sitting. The chick looked at the branch, raised its paw, but, lowering it, missed and almost fell down. He tried again and failed again. This was repeated 14 times! On the fifteenth attempt, he coordinated and, clumsily flapping his wings, jumped, or rather, climbed onto the top branch ”(Niko Tinbergen).

They were attracted by branches facing the direction they flew to, and most importantly, from where their parents flew in with food. The young ones already recognized them among all the flying birds. They did not greet strangers with shouts, but, frowning, pressed their feathers, seeing off strangers with anxious glances.

They soon began to fly. Learned to get lunch right in the air. Difficult lesson. Misses, clumsy maneuvers, overshoots, undershoots, new approaches and false starts...

Parents patiently turned around, flew back, slowed down, fluttering their wings almost in place, “waiting for one of the chicks to take the correct position after another miss.”

And when they themselves tried to catch someone, the curiosity followed the curiosity. Not a dashing robbery raid, but clowning turned out.

“Sometimes two young Hobbies rushed at one beetle, collided and somersaulted down, desperately flapping their wings. In the end, they managed to somehow level off, and meanwhile the beetle calmly flew on ... Dragonflies at first were completely inaccessible game for them, but as soon as they managed to comprehend the methods of catching beetles, they began to chase dragonflies ”(Nico Tinbergen) .

They did not even try to chase the birds, even as a joke.

Games like those “Cossacks and robbers” that our children play helped to practice hunting techniques.

Leaving fruitless attempts to grab the dragonfly, the young Hobby, folding its wings, suddenly rushed from above to its sister or brother, who, a hundred meters below, perfected the methods of hunting for beetles. Flight, chase, maneuvers on bends, a steep rise up and again a steep fall, but not once did the claws break a single feather, although paws ready for grasping were always thrown out at the right moment. It's a game. Training.

By the end of August, young Hobbies were already skillfully catching dragonflies. After August, as you know, September follows in a series of months. It's time to get on the road. Africa is not far away. How will the young Hobbies feed on this long “walk”, having not really learned how to catch birds?

“Whether young Hobbies make their autumn migration on their own or stay with their parents for a while, I don’t know,” says Tinbergen.

Who knows?

Secretary and osprey

The secretary is a special bird: when he steps with dignity on long legs across the savanna, he looks like a short-billed crane or stork. The black feathers of his crest are folded in a narrow tuft on his head, if the bird is calm. For the crest, he was nicknamed the secretary: it was the manner of the clerks of the old days to put a quill behind the ear so that it was always at hand when you needed to write.

They walk in pairs not far from each other. In the grass, in the bushes, pushing them apart with long legs, they are looking for locusts, beetles, lizards, rats, mice, chicks. Small turtles are also eaten. But snakes... snakes for secretaries are the most desirable prey. Even as chicks, already in the nests they “work out” the combat techniques of hunting snakes, as if dancing, throwing up one paw after another, beating the nest litter instead of future victims.

The secretary sees the snake, quickly runs towards it, half-spreading its wings for better balance. Beats with paws. The blow is strong, but the snake is also tenacious, its secretary will hit it ten times before killing it. If it is a very poisonous snake, then a leggy bird of prey will carefully attack it. It flies over the reptile and strikes from above with one and the other leg. Wings as a shield do not substitute her bites. (The hornbills protect themselves from snake teeth with their wings when they peck a snake in small flocks from different sides!) The fastest snake in the world is the mamba. Not everyone can run away from it. Mamba secretaries shun, do not touch.

Having beaten the reptile to death, the secretary, first of all, with a sharp beak, like a knife, separates its head from the neck. Then he breaks into pieces and eats.

“I have seen a full-grown hare caught in tall grass and killed with quick blows, so that loud slaps could be heard. Here, too, he did not touch his head ... The secretary has good manners ... I was watching a marsh harrier, which was eating something, when the secretary passed a few yards from him, stopped, stared at the harrier for a minute and went on. Harrier, frightened by me, flew off with heavy prey and landed about twenty yards from the secretary. He went to him with great dignity, checked that he was eating, and left with the same dignity ”(R. Meinertzhagen).

The secretary flies without much desire, only when he is forced to do so or to sleep in the trees. Takes off with a running start and, landing, runs for some time. Secretaries' nests on the tops of thorny bushes or trees. They are large, up to two meters in diameter, but so well covered with thick branches that they are invisible. Two or three white eggs are incubated by the female for 45 days. Young secretaries do not leave the nest for a long time: they live in it for 80-100 days dependent on their parents.

The only species of secretaries, which were previously considered a special variety of bustards, are now distinguished by taxonomists as a separate family of birds of prey. They live only in the savannas and steppes of sub-Saharan Africa. Two tens of millions of years ago there were secretaries in the south of France.

The fisherman osprey also represents a special family in the singular. Ospreys nest almost all over the world, except for the tundra zone, South America and the central regions of Africa, but they fly here for the winter, so it can be said that all of Africa has been inhabited by them for some time. Nests - on the tops of large trees, on rocks, rarely in some places and on the ground. The chicks, already grown up, sit in the nests for two months. Then, under the guidance of adults, they learn fishing skills. A week later, they themselves skillfully fish.

Throws for fish from a height near the osprey are virtuoso. Noticing a fish from a strafing flight, wings half-folded, paws stretched far forward, an osprey rapidly falls on it, usually at an angle of forty-five degrees, but often in a sheer peak. Often plunges into the water with its head and immediately soars up, carrying the fish in the claws of one or both paws. Holds it almost always head first. In the air, it immediately shakes itself off and flies to a cliff or a tree to eat. Then, sometimes, it will fly over the water, dipping its legs and head into it to wash off the fish mucus and scales.

The osprey has long claws, fingers on the underside are planted with sharp tubercles (slippery fish will not break out!), One front finger, when it grabs a fish, is turned back so that it is more firmly clamped on both sides, like in pincers. The osprey weighs about two kilograms, and the fish drags two or three kilograms out of the water. But usually 100-200 gram fish predominate in her diet, the daily norm of which is about 400 grams.

The osprey can no longer lift prey heavier than four kilograms. And, it happens, it’s deep into its claws, it doesn’t have time to release them in time and then it drowns, carried to the bottom by a too heavy prey. only a skeleton, like a terrible rider, sits on a fish.There is such a photograph of a carp caught in Saxony.He was small: weighed four kilograms and still managed to drag the osprey into the depths.

When fishing is unlucky, the osprey hunts for mice, frogs, even small crocodiles! Sometimes it attacks birds, and such large ones as gannets. Some eagles are piracy, attacking the osprey in the air when it has successfully hunted. You have to throw the prey, and the white-tailed robber deftly grabs it on the fly and carries it off without hesitation as its legal tribute.

Order Diurnal Birds of Prey (Accipitres, or Falconiformes)

About 270 species belong to this order. These are birds of medium and large size. One of the largest species, the American condor, has a wing about 115 cm long, with a wingspan of up to 275 cm. The smallest birds of prey - the so-called pygmy falcons - have a 9-10 cm long wing.

Birds of prey are characterized by a strong hook-shaped beak at the end, the base of which is dressed in bare, brightly colored skin - cere, into which the external openings of the nostrils open. The legs of birds of prey are of moderate length, with curved and usually sharp claws (only secretaries have long legs). The claws and beak serve to kill, and the latter to dismember the prey. The toes are relatively long, with pads on the plantar side that serve to hold the prey. The physique is dense, the plumage is rigid and close to the body. The color is usually dull, mostly gray, brown, red or black, often with an admixture of white. In some carrion-feeding species, the head and part of the neck are bare, unfeathered.

There are 10 primary flight feathers, the number of secondary flight feathers is different, most often 12, but in some well-soaring large species (for example, in vultures) 19-20. The tail is usually short (with the exception of the secretary), rounded or carved at the top, of 12 tail feathers (in some large species, 14).

In most species, males and females are similarly colored, but young birds in the first year, sometimes later, differ from adults in color. Usually, males are smaller than females, but in Old World vultures both sexes are the same size, and in American condors, males are larger than females.

Birds of prey are diurnal, only a few of them are crepuscular.

Birds of prey are distributed all over the world: they are absent only in Antarctica and on some oceanic islands.

In the northern and temperate latitudes, some of the species are migratory, while the saddled part wanders outside the breeding season.

The life expectancy of birds of prey is quite significant. There are cases when the buffoon eagle lived in captivity for 55 years, the golden eagle - 46 years, the condor lived in the Moscow Zoo for 69 years, the goshawk - 25 years. Banding data also show that medium-sized birds of prey live for at least about 15 years. Hardly all of these are deadlines.

Birds of prey are monogamous. They breed once (rarely twice) a year. Nests of a simple device, usually in trees, sometimes in hollows, on rocks, on the ground. Often a ready-made nest built by another bird species is engaged. Usually the same pair nests in the same nesting area year after year. The number of eggs is different - from 1-2 (in large species) to 6-7 and even 9 (in small ones).

Incubation begins after the laying of the first egg, and therefore the chicks in the brood are of different ages. The female incubates mainly, the male replaces her only for a short time. Large species incubate for almost 2 months (for example, condor, bearded vulture). Species of medium size incubate for about a month.

The chicks emerge from the eggs well pubescent and sighted, but need feeding and heating during their stay in the nest, as well as protection from enemies. There are two downy outfits, the second is replaced by a feather one. Departure from the nest in small and medium-sized species of predators occurs at about a month of age, in large vultures - only at three or even four months.

The main food of birds of prey are various animals, primarily mammals, birds and insects. Birds of prey often feed on carrion. Few of them feed on plant foods (for example, the African vulture eagle feeds on the fruits of the Guinean and wine palms, the Guiana caracara on the fruits of Loranthus and Clusia). Some species feed on a wide range of foods, others are highly specialized.

Under natural conditions, birds of prey eat prey with bones, wool, feathers, the undigested remains of which are periodically thrown out through the mouth in the form of so-called pellets.

Most birds of prey seek out prey by flying. In this regard, they have excellent vision and the ability to fly.

Birds of prey molt once a year, after the end of the breeding season. The line is complete. It lasts for a long time, which is associated with the need to preserve the bird's flying qualities.

The practical importance of birds of prey for human economic activity in general should be assessed positively. Most of them bring direct benefits by eating rodents and insects that are harmful to agriculture. Others, destroying first of all sick and weak individuals, are an essential selection factor. Even those birds of prey that feed mainly on hunting or otherwise useful animals cannot cause significant damage, since the total number of these species is low and they are relatively numerous only in sparsely populated areas. Therefore, birds of prey are now protected in one form or another in the vast majority of countries. At the same time, the undoubted significance of birds of prey as natural monuments is also taken into account.

Birds of prey are also of particular interest from a historical, cultural and sporting point of view.

The use of birds of prey by humans for hunting purposes - the so-called falconry, or hunting with birds of prey - dates back to ancient times, although much in the history of this hunt remains unclear. Archaeological finds show that birds of prey were hunted in the British Isles as early as the Bronze Age. In Mesopotamia, falconry was known at least as far back as the 8th century BC. e. The heyday of falconry in Europe dates back approximately to the 12th-17th centuries, and its beginning is to some extent connected with the crusades, when the crusaders could get acquainted with the practice of falconry among the Arabs. Profound social changes that occurred at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, technical innovations, primarily the spread of hunting firearms, caused the decline of hunting with birds of prey. However, it has survived, but on a smaller scale.

In our country, the use of birds of prey for hunting “by feather and by beast” has a long history: in Kievan Rus it dates back at least to the 10th century. The tribal emblem of the ancient Rurikovich depicted a flying falcon. In the Asian part of the Soviet Union - in Central Asia - it probably has an even more ancient history, but there is little definite information about this. This, of course, is connected with the complex history of the peoples of Central and Central Asia.

In the European part of the Soviet Union sport hunting with birds of prey ceased at the beginning of this century. Only on the Black Sea coast of Georgia, migratory quails with sparrowhawks are still hunted. As a sport and craft, hunting with birds of prey takes place in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and on a small scale in Turkmenistan.

For hunting, various types of birds of prey were used, mainly various falcons and hawks, in Asia - the golden eagle and some others. In our country, large falcons (saker falcon, peregrine falcon, gyrfalcon), hawks (sparrow hawk and goshawk) and golden eagle served as hunting birds.

Taming and training hunting birds of prey is not difficult, but requires patience from the hunter. It should always be remembered that hunting birds never become such “servants” of a person as dogs. It is not possible to accustom a hunting bird to bring the caught prey to the owner.

The service life of hunting birds depends on the experience of hunters and on the care of the bird, as well as on various accidents. Falcon and goshawk serve 3-4 years, but in good hands up to 20 and even 25 years. Golden eagles live the same number of years.

In order to make it easier to find a hunting bird during the hunt, bells or bells are put on it. They are tied to the falcons on the tarsals with small straps, and in Central Asia they are attached to the hawks with a metal peg to the middle steering (tail) feather.

To protect the hand, the hunter wears (in Europe on the left, in Asia on the right hand) a thick leather glove with a gaiter. It is difficult to carry golden eagles on the arm, and therefore, in Central Asia, hunters carry them on a stand with a seat; the base of this stand the hunter rests on the saddle.

In addition to sporting interest, hunting with birds of prey can also be cost-effective. An experienced "berkutchi" (a hunter with a golden eagle) can get 30-40, and sometimes 50-60 foxes per season. The best hunting golden eagles also take wolves. A good goshawk in the hands of an experienced hunter can get several pheasants, and a sparrowhawk - 50-60 quails per hunting day,

Birds - amazing creatures, which can not only delight the eye with their elegant plumage, but also delight with speed, agility and beautiful flight. Among the known species of birds, birds of prey have always been of great interest to humans.

natural born hunters, with magnificent curved claws, a very keen eye and incredible maneuverability, they are created by assassins. Attacking their prey, these birds do not know mercy. Falconiformes is a detachment of birds of prey, which includes the following bright representatives: falcons, eagles, buzzards, hawks and others.

Diurnal Birds of Prey

Not all birds that hunt for their food are predators. Many species feed on various living creatures, however, they are not classified as birds of prey. Maybe this will surprise someone, but the owls that many live in Russia, not accepted as birds of prey. Although they share many similarities with eagles and hawks, they are classified as nocturnal predators.

Although all birds of prey are carnivorous, their diet can include not only reptiles and mammals, but even insects. The same applies to the shrike or skua.

Zoological systematics relates to the category of diurnal birds of prey only those of them that belong to the order of falcons. The most famous of them:

• hawks;
• eagles;
• falcons;
• eagles.

These are just some of the diurnal birds of prey that share a similar appearance: a downward-curved beak, curved, and very sharp claws. The color of heterosexual representatives of these species is mostly almost the same, however, females are several times larger than males. Taking into account this fact, it is possible to distinguish a male from a female even with the naked eye from the outside.

Enough large predator, which has a bright beautiful color: a dark top with a gray tint, yellow eyes and light transverse stripes on the breast. The weight of an adult is in the range from 700 grams to 1.5 kilograms.

has long been considered a harmful predator, but is now protected by Russian law and is under protection, like other species of diurnal birds of prey.

He hunts various birds, deftly and with predatory prowess destroying crows, thrushes and other birds. Does not shun squirrels and even young hares. Basically, sick or injured animals become its victims; they simply cannot escape from its tenacious paws and powerful beak.

The goshawk lives almost throughout the vast tundra and in the northern regions, along the floodplains in the southern tundra. It usually nests in very tall trees., and the eggs that the female hawk lays are light in color with spots of dark colors.

This is a bright representative of the order of diurnal birds of prey living in Russia. The weight of such an individual ranges from 4 to 7 kilograms, and the wingspan can reach up to 2 meters. It is worth noting that the distinctive feature of this handsome man is a white tail, which can only be observed in an adult bird, whose age is more than three years.

The young specimen has a dark tail, because of this it can be confused with a golden eagle or even with an eagle. However, the bird can be distinguished during the flight. The tail of an eagle will be wedge-shaped, while that of a golden eagle will be rounded.

The habitat of this predator is almost all of Russia, with the exception of waterless desert places and the Far North. This hunter nests on deciduous trees and only sometimes - on the rocks. In the nesting places of the eagle, there will certainly be reservoirs and rivers nearby, where he can get the necessary amount of fish and waterfowl, which he usually hunts.

To meet an eagle on the territory of the open tundra is a great success. As a rule, in such places the bird prefers not to nest. The eagle builds its nests in such an area on hills or cliffs.

Eagles are not distinguished by such devotion and fidelity as swans, but they are always constant in choosing a partner. The female usually lays up to three eggs, which are white in color and have small brown spots. In some cases, the spots may be ocher in color.

Eagle is an incredibly beautiful predator, listed in the Red Book. The conservation of this species of birds is one of the priorities of the environmental legislation of Russia. This predator seeks to avoid people, and there have been cases when the eagle migrated to distant rocks from its habitual places near water bodies with the frequent appearance of people there.

Falcons and eagles

The falcon is an amazingly fast bird, a born hunter. The speed that the falcon is able to develop in the process of hunting can reach more than 320 kilometers per hour. In the sky, the predator feels incredibly confident and, as a rule, always overtakes the victim.

Falcons and eagles live in most of Russia, with the exception of the Arctic zone. Like eagles, falcons are very often tamed by people and used in hunting trips. The falcon always remains a faithful and reliable friend to its owner.

Perfect eyesight, beautiful plumage, tenacious claws with steel strength, a massive curved beak are the hallmarks of a falcon and an eagle.

Like many other birds of prey in Russia, falcons are protected by law. Some varieties of falcons, such as peregrine falcons or gyrfalcons, are prohibited from being exported from the country.

nocturnal birds of prey

Birds of prey that hunt their prey primarily at night are called nocturnal birds of prey. The brightest representative of this species is the owl, which has several subspecies:

• owl polar or white;
• short-eared owl;
• hawk or falcon.

If not everyone has seen rare representatives of diurnal predators, most of the Russian population with enviable regularity can meet an owl in the urban environment, not to mention the forests, where there are significantly more of them.

White Owl

This is the largest representative of the entire family of owls, with a wingspan of up to 1.5 meters and a body length of more than 70 centimeters. Young owls are variegated in color, while older individuals are white with black spots on their heads. The paws of owls have abundant plumage, the eyes are yellow, and the beak is black.

The owl hunts for rodents and some birds, such as gulls, snow buntings, sandpipers and even ducks. Sometimes an owl can torment forest animals that have fallen into a trap. For this reason hunters dislike owls and can destroy them at a meeting.

short-eared owl

More often than all other varieties of owls in the tundra and swampy areas, you can meet a short-eared owl. During the winter months, this species roams throughout Asia and Europe, and can even reach Africa and America.

The main difference between a short-eared owl and a polar owl is its dimensions. The length of an adult bird ranges from 30 to 40 centimeters, and its wingspan is not more than 1 meter.

Its color has a brown or yellowish tint, paws and beak are black. Not only rodents, but also frogs with insects can get into her diet.

hawk owl

This owl can be attributed to diurnal predators. It has much in common with a falcon, which is why it is often called a falcon owl. Sharp wings and a falcon-like manner of hunting, screams and incredible courage, a quick climb and a lightning attack make her the best hunter among her relatives.

In Russia, the hawk owl is found in the tundra, where it enters through floodplain places from the north of the Ob.

Systematics of the Order Diurnal Birds of Prey (except for the Falcon detachment)

Description and varieties

To the squad Diurnal Birds of Prey ( falconiformes) include about 290 species that are diverse in lifestyle, habitats, nesting patterns, appearance and size. There are giants among them - the American condor (weighing up to 10 kg and with a wingspan of up to 3 m), there are also dwarfs: a crumbly falcon, which weighs only about 50-60 g. The plumage of birds of prey is dense, soft in color, with a predominance of black , gray, brown and red tones. Their wings are sharp, long, adapted for rapid flight, or wide with a split top, allowing them to soar for hours in ascending air currents. The body of the representatives of this detachment is strong, laterally compressed, with a wide chest; they have a large head and a short and thick neck. The muscular power of feathered predators, especially their paws and necks, is many times greater than the strength of other similarly sized birds. A very characteristic feature of diurnal predators is the structure of their beak: it is rather short, and its upper half has a curved back, a hooked tip and is covered at the base with wax; while the upper half is motionless and wider than the lower. Often the sharpness of the edges is enhanced by the presence of a tooth at the end of the upper jaw. The legs of these birds are usually short, strong and long-toed; fingers (three fingers point forward, one backward) have developed claws, which in most species are more or less strongly bent and pointed (only in vultures they are blunt) and serve as a convenient grasping organ and a terrible weapon. Birds of prey have superbly developed color vision and excellent hearing. The visual acuity of some of them is 8 times higher than that of a person. So, the steppe eagle sees a ground squirrel from a height of several hundred meters, a peregrine falcon a dove from a kilometer away, a buzzard unmistakably looks for a green grasshopper in green grass from a height of 100 meters, and vultures can distinguish the corpse of a small antelope from a distance of 3-4 km.

reproduction

Almost all predators live in pairs that can last for many years. They nest in trees, often on ledges of rocks or on the roofs of old buildings; less common in tree cavities and very rare on the ground. Both sexes usually take part in nest building. Many of the birds of prey (for example, medium-sized falcons) do not build nests themselves, preferring to use the nests of other birds (corvids, herons, black storks, and other diurnal birds of prey). Large species have 1-2 eggs in clutch, small ones - 6-7, incubation lasts from 28 to 55 days. In most species, one female incubates, but in some, the male replaces her from time to time. The hatched chicks are completely helpless: they are covered with thick whitish-gray down, with a large head and open eyes. Parents first feed them with semi-digested food, burping it out of the goiter, then give them torn animal parts. In some species, only the female can prepare food for the chicks; the male does not know how to tear apart the prey and, in the absence of the female, the chicks can die even with an abundance of food. The chicks grow rapidly and leave the nest after 1-3 months. Young predators that have flown out of the nest continue to be fed, protected and taught to hunt by their parents for a long time.

Food

Most predators live up to their name - they feed on a wide variety of vertebrates, which they actively seek out with the help of their sharpest eyesight and catch them by sticking their sharp claws into their prey. But among them there are lovers of shellfish, insects, carrion and even ... fruits. So, the bearded man is not averse to eating bones and ... hooves, the slug-eating kite cannot live without snails, and the diet of the African vulture eagle includes something like fish salad with crabs and ... oil palm fruits. Some of the diurnal predators are almost omnivorous, while others feed mainly on one type of prey: insects (honey beetles), fish (ospreys) or reptiles (snakes).

Habitat

Predator birds- a necessary element of the biocenosis and play a certain role in the regulation of the number of vertebrates, such as harmful rodents: destroying weak or sick animals, they improve the population. Diurnal predators are distributed throughout the globe (excluding Antarctica and some oceanic islands) and are found in all natural zones from the tundra to the desert and tropical forests. Many live settled, some make nomadic or long-distance flights.