AVIS-IBIS

Birds of Indian Subcontinent

Food Habits of Marsh Hawks in the Glaciated Prairie Region of North-Central United States

Publication Type:Journal Article
Year of Publication:1936
Authors:Errington, PL, Breckenridge, WJ
Journal:American Midland Naturalist
Volume:17
Issue:5
Date Published:1936
ISBN Number:00030031
Keywords:Phasianidae, Phasianus, Phasianus colchicus
Abstract:Summer food habits studies in Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have given us recent data on nearly a thousand individuals of vertebrate prey taken by marsh hawks hunting in areas we have under some degree of contemporaneous ecological observation. Supplementing the summer data, we have some for other seasons, although these have been acquired from miscellaneous sources and from localities with which we were familiar in but a superficial way. The marsh hawk, in common with most other predators, seems to feed chiefly upon whatever it finds conveniently available as food, whether that food be carrion (of fresher grades) or captured prey. The carrion eaten is represented in large measure by carcasses of animals killed along highways by motor traffic; the prey, by young rabbits, mice, the smaller ground squirrels, passerine birds, and young or crippled individuals of larger species, including ring-necked pheasants. From the findings of intensive studies of vertebrate populations, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the role of predation in determining population levels of prey species may be of far less consequence on the whole than has been previously believed. A great deal of the pressure of predators--that of marsh hawks included--seems to be centered upon those proportions of the prey populations that tend to exceed the capacities for accommodation of their respective habitats.
URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2420690
Short Title:American Midland Naturalist
Scratchpads developed and conceived by (alphabetical): Ed Baker, Katherine Bouton Alice Heaton Dimitris Koureas, Laurence Livermore, Dave Roberts, Simon Rycroft, Ben Scott, Vince Smith