A new study reports that the Niassa Special Reserve, a 4-million-hectare (10-million-acre) wilderness in northern Mozambique, harbors the largest documented breeding population of Taita falcons. A survey that focused on 35 of the reserve’s towering granite inselbergs found 14 pairs of the birds. The study authors estimate the entire reserve could harbor up to 76 pairs. It’s an astonishing number for a species whose other known breeding sites host fewer than 10 pairs. Taita falcons (Falco fasciinucha) are stocky birds with russet chests, white throats, and black facial stripes. One of the world’s rarest birds of prey, they survive in isolated, fragmented populations scattered along the eastern side of Africa, from southern Ethiopia to northeastern South Africa. The IUCN estimates their total number at up to 1,000 mature individuals, but this estimate is uncertain due to a scarcity of data from regions north of Zimbabwe and Mozambique. A young Taita falcon, recently fledged from a nest in Blyde River Canyon, South Africa: Falco fasciinucha has been recorded across a wide expanse of East and Southern Africa, but limited systematic surveys means its distribution and population numbers are uncertain. Image courtesy of Anthony van Zyl. Taita falcons hunt small, fast insect-eating birds such as flycatchers, swifts and bee-eaters. Hunting from Niassa’s inselbergs that rise above surrounding woodlands appears to give the raptors an edge over larger peregrine (Falco peregrinus) and lanner falcons (Falco biarmicus), which occupy this same territory in smaller numbers but must fly further in search of grain-eating prey…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed