Diet of Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus) in relation to temporal and spatial variation in racing pigeon availability in Wales

Abstract The relative frequency of Common Pigeons Columba livia in the diet of Peregrine Falcons differed across three areas of south-central Wales in line with racing pigeon availability. Peregrines exhibited a functional response to spatial and temporal availability of racing pigeons. During the pigeon-racing season (April–September), pigeons comprised 63% of kills in South Wales where pigeons were most available, 43% in the Brecon Beacons with intermediate availability and 30% in Central Wales, where availability was lowest. The corresponding values outside the pigeon-racing season were 18%, 6% and 5% respectively. We estimate that 92% of pigeons killed by Peregrines were racing pigeons, 7% were feral pigeons and the remainder were other domestic pigeon varieties.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Ornis Hungarica

• Publication date

  2018-12-01

• Fields of study

  Geography, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1515/orhu-2018-0028
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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