Brahminy Kite: Competition for food

Posted by BESG on 22 September 07, Saturday
Contributed by Lee Tiah Khee

In the avian world, it is the law of the jungle, the survival of the fittest. The larger and stronger bird always bullies the smaller and weaker, especially where food is concerned. There are exceptions of course, where smaller (but not too small) birds can be more aggressive and attack larger but more timid birds.

Also, the mature birds are usually stronger and more experienced than the immature.

This is seen in the image sent in by Lee Tiah Khee, where an adult Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus), after an exciting aerial chase, successfully grabbed the fresh catch of a juvenile. The juvenile put up a spirited fight but ultimately experience and size got the better of the situation. The adult dominated the struggle, ending up above the juvenile, to successfully wrest the food away from the latter’s talons. So the juvenile lost its hard-earned meal, some of which plummeted to the ground, and hopefully learnt a lesson.

Note that the adult (above) has a distinct white head, neck and breast that contrast with the chestnut belly and underwings. Also, note the obvious signs of moulting primary, secondary and tail feathers.

The juvenile bird (below) shows distinctly pale primary-wing panels, dark secondaries and dark-tipped primaries.

Related Posts:

Brahminy Kite: Nesting observations In March 2007, Mark Chua came across a nesting... Brahminy Kite eating on the wing The Brahminy Kite (Haliastur indus) is carnivorous, taking a... Brahminy Kite eating on the wing Myron Tay was at Changi recently when he noticed... Landing a Brahminy Kite in the Andaman Stephen Lau and his fishing buddies were in the Andaman... Portrait of an eagle: Changeable Hawk Eagle The Changeable Hawk Eagle (Spizaetus cirrhatus) found in this... Juvenile birds begging for food Nestlings are continuously fed by the parent birds as... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Email Post

Categories: Feeding chicks

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Anti-spam word: (Required)*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.