The post-drought breeding behaviour and diet of a pair of Brown Falcons Falco berigora near Goulburn, New South Wales

Abstract

The breeding behaviour and diet of a pair of Brown Falcons Falco berigora on the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales in the post-drought year of 2021 were studied by ~48 hours of observation over 28 days from incubation to fledging, and by analysis of pellets. Both the male and the female, primarily the female, incubated but only the female brooded and fed the three chicks, and the male provided food at 0.1 item/h during incubation and 0.3 item/h during the nestling period, boosted to a combined rate of 0.5 item/h by the female later in the nestling period. Observed prey brought to the nest area (n = 14) was, by number, 79% mammal, 7% bird and 14% unidentified (apparently vertebrate), although some pellets included reptile scales and traces of insect. These findings supplement and compare with those for a previous study at the site in a dry year (2018); the diet was much more dominated by mice in 2021 during a plague of House Mice Mus musculus in the NSW grain belt.