Food and Feeding
The Letter-winged Kite is the only fully nocturnal raptor. Its principal prey is the Long-haired Rat, Rattus villosissimus. When population numbers of this rodent build up, following good rainfall, the Kites are able to breed continuously and colonially so that their numbers increase in parallel. When the rodent populations decline, the now superabundant Kites may disperse and appear in coastal areas far from their normal range in which, though they may occasionally breed, they do not persist and eventually disappear. One central Australian study over two and a half years found the kites had relocated to an area within six months of a rodent outbreak starting.
Across Central Australia, it shares its habitat with another nocturnal rodent hunter, the Barn Owl (Tyto alba), with the latter species preferring larger rodents such as the Plains rat (Pseudomys australis) whereas the kite took all species, including the Sandy Inland Mouse (Pseudomys hermannsburgensis) and Spinifex Hopping Mouse (Notomys alexis), on availability. Overall, Letter-winged Kites average one rodent consumed a day. Other predators sharing its habitat include the dingo, feral cat and fox.
Letter-winged Kites have also been recorded hunting the introduced house mouse Mus musculus in north-eastern South Australia.
Read more about this topic: Letter-winged Kite
Famous quotes containing the words food and, food and/or feeding:
“Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“The food of thy soul is light and space; feed it then on light and space. But the food of thy body is champagne and oysters; feed it then on champagne and oysters; and so shall it merit a joyful resurrection, if there is any to be.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Injections ... are the best thing ever invented for feeding doctors.”
—Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928)