FAMILY FALCONIDAE 28$ 



de Tole, and in Veraguas near Santa Fe, but found mainly below 800 

 meters elevation ; Isla Coiba ; Isla Taboga ; Isla San Jose. 



This handsome falcon is the species of its genus most frequently 

 seen on the isthmus, as, in addition to its usual resting places on stubs 

 projecting above the forest canopy, it comes regularly to the dead 

 trees that stand in pastures and other clearings. 



Rarely I have seen one soaring in favorable thermals in company 

 M^ith turkey vultures. In Sona, in May and June 1953, I recorded 

 one or two daily, toward sunset, when they came to hawk over the 

 plaza for flying beetles and other large insects, and a little later as 

 darkness approached to capture some of the numerous bats. They 

 are so amazingly quick in the air that few are the flying creatures 

 that may elude them. On the coast of Darien I saw them pursuing 

 dragonflies and verified the capture of these insects when I found one 

 in the stomach of a falcon that I had shot. Cicadas also are taken. 

 On Barro Colorado Island Chapman (My Tropical Air Castle, 1929, 

 pp. 240-241) recorded them feeding on moths. The small birds 

 around them, myriad in number, are a principal item in their food, 

 particularly when they are feeding young. William Beebe (Zool., 

 vol. 35, 1950, pp. 69-86) has published a graphic account of obser- 

 vations made at Rancho Grande in the coast range of northern 

 Venezuela of a pair that he watched for over five months, while they 

 mated and reared two young. As the birds lived within a hundred 

 meters of his laboratory windows he was able to identify many items 

 of their food. These included 33 mammals of 5 species, 163 birds of 

 56 species, 19 insects of 14 species, a lizard, a snake, and a frog. Most 

 of the insects were butterflies, among them a morpho and a swallow- 

 tail. The mammals, aside from one mouse, were bats. The hunting 

 skills of these swift-flying falcons are illustrated well in the kinds of 

 birds taken, which in addition to wood warblers, tanagers, and finches 

 included 17 swallows of 5 kinds, 34 hummingbirds, ranging from 

 tiny emerald hummers to large hermits, and 26 swifts of 8 species. 

 This last amazing item included 3 collared swifts, large, heavy bodied 

 birds, capable of great speed in flight, with wings nearly as long as 

 those of the falcon which captured them. The male falcon regularly 

 brought food for his mate and later for her to feed to the young. 

 Birds usually were prepared for eating by careful plucking, with 

 feathers discarded, except casually for some of the more firmly 

 attached wing quills. 



I have noted that bat falcons protest disturbance of their nesting 

 areas frequently with cackling notes ke ke ke ke, which suggest those 



