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Ornithological Science
Abstract
Abstract
A breeding pair of Hodgson's Hawk-eagles Nisaetus nipalensis brought prey items of four vertebrate taxa with a mass range of 5–1900g to the nest. In the late breeding period, when both sexes performed provisioning, the male delivered birds and lighter items, whereas the female brought reptiles and heavier items, resulting in significant sexual prey partitioning regarding both taxa and mass. In the nestling stage, coinciding with the late breeding period, the male achieved a provisioning rate similar to that of the female, despite hunting bird prey, whose agility reduces their vulnerability, indicating the male's greater overall foraging ability.
I am grateful to the Hasegawa, Nagano, Onishi, and Miyazaki families for their hospitality during the fieldwork. I thank D. Muramatsu, T. Kiyoshi, Y. Sawa, M. Sugiura, Y. Motegi, T. Okamoto, K. Mochida, T. Haramura, H. Matsubara, and M. Kajita for assistance in capturing birds and climbing to nests, Y. Yurugi for providing lodging during preliminary fieldwork, Y. Endo and A. Shimizu for assistance in preliminary field observations, R. Yamada for providing chickens to lure and capture birds, S. Asai for sexing the blood samples of birds, K. Tanaka and M. Motokawa for prey identification, and S. Barribeau, S. Cook, and E. Nakajima for their comments. I also thank A. Mori for prey identification and comments, and M. Imafuku and S. Yamagishi for their advice. This study was supported by grants for Biodiversity Research of the 21st Century COE (A14) and Global COE Program (A06) to Kyoto University.
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