Some Notes on the White-lagged Falconet.



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his kind, and for most of the day would sit quite quiet and apparently

asleep, but up to about ten in the morning and after three or four in

the afternoon was very lively and active, much to the distress and

^convenience of the Kestrels, who had always to be on the alert

and clear off any perch he desired for the moment to rest on.


He would never kill the small birds given him for food if he

knew that I was looking' on, but the one or two I caught him killing

unawares were all killed in the same way as that in which I first

saw him try to encompass the Woodpecker’s death. He waited

paitently until his prey was just under him and then hurled himself

upon it with incredible speed and accuracy, the result in every

case being death to the bird attacked. The corpses of those I have

found killed seemed to have all met their death in the same way.


In a state of nature the Falconets undoubtedly live far more

on insects than on birds or small mammals, and I have several times

watched them hawking termites in the evening' when these were

flighting. Whilst engaged in this pursuit their actions were typically

those of the larger birds of prey, the foot always being used for the

capture, and for conveyance of the captured white ant to the mouth.

They seldom seemed to miss any termite they struck at, being far

more accurate in this respect than the Rollers, King-crows, and other

birds which joined in the fray.


A flight of “ white-ants ” is a wonderful sight, and in some

cases many hundreds of thousands of ants must be on the wing at a

time, so there is for the time being food and to spare for all who

care. Accordingly Falconets and other birds are all fully employed,

and there is no reason for the former to resent the latter sharing in

the banquet and I never saw any attempt at molestation.


They seem often to have very favourite perches which they

visit evening after evening at about the same hour. One such perch

was a dead branch on the top of an immense tree standing on a

plateau and surrounded by tea, which was regularly visited by a pair

of these birds, who hawked insects during the summer months, from

about four o’clock until it was almost dark. Under this tree were a

good many of the pellets which these little birds disgorge, and these

pellets proved that they were very largely insect eaters, though we

also found bones of mice, bats and small birds, whilst scattered about



