Biometrics and body masses of some birds of prey of Argentina

Rodrigo Aráoz,Diego Ortiz,Patricia Capllonch

doi:10.1007/bf03544365

Abstract

We present data from 97 live specimens from 20 different taxa of diurnal raptors from Argentina. Data were obtained from bird banding campaigns conducted by the Centro Nacional de Anillado de Aves (CENAA), Universidad Nacional de Tucuman, Argentina. Another important source of data was the Centro de Rehabilitacion de Aves Rapaces (CeRAR). We used mist nets and balchatri traps to catch birds during CENAA campaigns in central and northern Argentina, in order to band them and study their migration. During fieldwork, we measured total body length, bill length (exposed culmen and culmen with cere), wing chord, and body mass of each bird. The biometric information of raptors in Argentina is scarce. These measurements can therefore be useful for a variety of topics such as conservation, ecology, biology, taxonomy and phylogeny.

Highlights

We used mist nets and bal-chatri traps (Bloom et al 2007) to catch birds during Centro Nacional de Anillado de Aves (CENAA) campaigns in central and northern Argentina, in order to band them and study their migration
Data were obtained from bird banding campaigns conducted by the Centro Nacional de Anillado de Aves de Argentina (CENAA), Universidad Nacional de Tucumán
The later method presents some difficulties, for example, the capture success of the bal-chatri with G. polyosoma is usually very low, with only a few individuals captured in dozens of attempts

Summary

Introduction

We used mist nets and bal-chatri traps (Bloom et al 2007) to catch birds during CENAA campaigns in central and northern Argentina, in order to band them and study their migration. Few studies on austral raptors present morphometric data, and these are mostly based on specimens housed in collections, instead of live birds.

Results

Conclusion