What are they?? A bird of prey is a bird that eats meat but a crow will eat meat if you leave it out for them does that make a crow a bird of prey, the answer is simply no because the crow wont kill it to eat it. There is a crow that is well known to farmers around the world that will attack little lambs and eat them and is considered a bird of prey because of its behavior the Grey Hooded Crow. These crows are slightly bigger than an average crow but hold the same body structure as a regular crow. When you here or think of a bird of prey you think hooded beak and huge wing span and phonomenal eye sight. Not these crows they have the same wing span as a crow and the same beak as a crow they just dont act like a crow they act like a bird of prey.

Not all birds of prey will kill to feed some wait until it has already died or dying, depending on the species determines the feeding habts. Some hunt during the day and some during the night, but they are all hunting the same thing meat. The big ones will hunt the small ones it seems the bigger they are the bigger the menu. These birds will attack other birds and eat them or feed them to their young and this sucks for the birds in the world because the biggest bird that fly’s on the planet is a bird of prey and the other birds in its habitat will become the food there is no two ways about it. The biggest bird on the planet is an ostrich you might say but in parts of Africa they still dont stand a chance with a swarm of Vultures okay it might have to be sick or dying but there was a case reported that the vultures followed the ostrich until it was exhausted and ate him then its just the way they work they dont care what they eat as long as they eat.

The Andean Condor

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The Andean Condor

The Andean Condor is the largest bird of prey in the world, when it is fully grown it can weigh over 30 pounds and have a wing span of 11 Feet. Let me tell you that you would notice one of these flying over you and it would be capable of taking your medium sized dog off the ground and never to be seen again, that is just to prove the scale and strenght of the bird it wont actually do this it prefers dead or dying prey for the easy option.

Its habitat is South America it prefers vast open areas and nests up very high off ground level on cliffs, mountainous areas and valley’s. The cliffs and mountain areas offer a great veiw for the Andean Condor to spot prey. An Andean condor could spot a mouse in a feild from 2 miles away their eye sight is far superiour to ours or any other animal in the world. Another reason for its nesting habits is to protect their young from predators such as snakes or wild dogs. They prefer wide open spaces because they can see more making the hunt more productive saves them trying to compinsate for trees and giving the prey more of a chance of escape. These birds are on the endangered species list and numbers are falling in the wild due to their habitat being invaded by building expanshion and other factors. 

The Elf Owl

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The Elf Owl

This is the smallest bird of prey measuring at just five inches and weighing in at one and a half ounces. these have a large range spreading over 590 thousand km2 and has a global population of 190,000 and is nowhere near the endangered species list. Elf Owls dont have ear tuffs like some other owls or feathers on the tops of their heads, they are of greyish brown colour and have pale yellow eyes with a white eye brow. They have excelent night vision but they cannot see in complete darkness, they need the dimest of light but can see better than you or I could in the same light. Although they cannot se in complete darkness they can catch their prey in there by pin pointing them with their ears.

If you hear any other bird fluttering around you will know the sound that slapping wing makes with the elf owl he defys the sound barrier and is the only bird in the world with a silent flight, means you can’t hear the little sneaky bugger. This comes in useful for catching prey, have you noticed that all little animals have big ears, ever asked yourself why this is, its so that they can hear predators in due time to get away, they could have elephants ears and still not here this bird coming. these birds are found in the Sonoran Desert region and any where there is water and saguaro cacti plants in southern USA and Mexico. They feed on bugs such as moths, crickets, scorpions, centipedes and beetles. they live in natural tree cavities and abandoned woodpecker holes, and their predators are the snake, other owls, coyotes, bobcats and ringtail. Elf owls can live up to 6-10 years in the wild.

Golden Eagles

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The Golden Eagle

Golden Eagles would be the more well known of the birds of prey found world wide throughout the northern hemisphere, it lives in mountainous areas with rugged terrain and a lot of updrafts to keep them up. The fighter jet was designed around this bird and its monuverability in flight. The golden eagle can use the updraft to remain perfectly still in the sky just like a photograph would appear if you were to take one. When you see these birds hanging so still in the sky they have spotted something in the grass below them, we’ll say a mouse, this is the attack position, this is where he is making the plan of attack, he meassures up the escape routes of the mouse, how fast the mouse can get into the bush over there at the edge, what way his shadow will cast on the ground as he is swooping, the path the mouse is taking now and what path he is likely to take giving its behaviour, and a whole bunch of other stratigic compromises, 9.9 times out of 10 he will get that mouse, why wouldn’t you want a war plane that can do all this.

The golden eagle can live up to 15 to 20 years they can be found in North America, North Africa, Europe and Asia. They can grow up to £ feet in lenght and weigh up to 7kgs with a wing span of seven feet. Juveniles are grey in colour up until about 6 months and start to go browney but keeping the white tip on their tail, they are not fully grown until the age of four here they will lose their white tip and become darker on the head. Golden eagles don’t bunch together in the winter months because they know that food will be scarce so they spread out in these months. Its habitat could stretch up to 260 km2 in the winter months. They eat all kinds of things such as Groundhogs, marmots, foxes, skunks, cats, small dogs, rabbits, grouse,squirrels, crows, pheasants, snakes, medow halks, tortoises basicaly if its small and it moves around, because they are so good at hunting thats all they do you wont find a golden eagle pecking at road kill, the thrill is in the chase with these birds.

Bald Eagles

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The Bald Eagle

Balds Eagles are found near large bodies of water such as lakes and rivers, where there are plenty of fish and trees to use for nesting and roosting. They are only found in the United States and Canada, the only state you wont find them in is Hawaii. These birds choose a place with year round feeding ground the birds that are in Canada migrate south for the harsh winter months to obtain easy access to food where most of the lakes and rivers have frozen over. Bald eagles can do pretty much what a golden eagle can do but wher it lacks the skills of one area it makes up for in its fishing skills. Their eye sight is phenomenal they can judge depth perception in water, have you ever dropped a penny in a wishing well and looked at it, if you were to reach in and grab it you would find your self reaching in further than what you had expected. Just like the mouse in the field with the golden eagle only its not a feild this time its a river, and its a bald eagle not a golden one. The bald eagle can determine which direction a fish is likely to take, I know I could be up there with him all day and not be able to tell him which way the fish was going to go, but thats not the amazing part, what fascinated me was how the eagle was able to judge the up and down movement of the fish in the water, and time it just right to be down at the waters surface to snatch the fish right out of there. I have seen a bald eagle do this and not even touch a feather off the surface of the water. It doesn’t just eat fish it eats all the other things the golden eagle does, just enjoys fishing I guess.

The feathers of a hatchling are grey and turn brown before leaving the nest at 12 weeks old. They don’t get the white colour head until their third or fourth year this is where they inherit the yellow beak and eyes. Bald eagles can grow up to 3 feet long and weigh up to 15 pounds and can live up to 40 years twice as long as their cousin the golden eagle, must be the fish. Bald eagles only have one partner for life only if this partner should die will they choose another. They build large nests called eyries at the top of a sturdy tree top or rock coloum away from predators, even the construction of the nest is designed to keep predators out they average 2 feet deep and 5 feet wide, they are designed to over hang on all sides so snakes cannot get in as the young grow so does the nest averaging nearly 10 in diameter.

Falcons

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Falcon

Falcon’s are about the weight and size of a crow, they can fly at over 180mph easy they are the worlds fastest flight animal and the most aerodynamic of them all too. A fighter jet was also designed around this birds amazing agility based on its speed and size, The Peregrine Flcon has been recorded nose diving at a remarkable speed of 220 mph, not your girly kph, the manly miles per hour that is pretty fast it can also take control of this speeding decent and simply fly off. If any other bird did that its wings would just snap off leaving a mess on the ground in a little creator it had formed.How do they do this, as smart as I am with the internet in front of me I just can’t tell you, or figure it out, I’d bet if you gave NASSA a call they would be able to tell you though.

These birds can live up to 15 years and seem to nest and multiply better around power plants for some unexplained reason. The female is called a Falcon and the male is called Tiercel the females are bigger and moer powerfull than the male too. These birds inhabit every country except the antartic for the obvious reasons, Their wings are pointed like a sparrows wing and span about forthy inches. Lots of these birds head south for the winter months and can travel as far as 10,0000 miles in a single migration thats farther than any other bird on the planet. So if you see a bunch of birds flying over your head at 220 miles per hour they are simply just off on their holidays. They can lay up to 3 or 4 eggs at a time and eat other smaller birds such as ducks, wading birds, sparrows, robins and even pigeons, again for thes birds the thrill is in the chase only these ones dont mind a few trees or branches to dodge in the process, they actually welcome the fact for the challenge. 

Vultures

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The Vulture

Vultures are the lazier breed of the bird of prey family they are one of the ugliest of them all too. When they were handing out skills these guys were last off the bus. They are not the brainiest bird by any stretch of the imagination and the thrill for thes birds is watching something kill their food for them, eat all the good parts and they just pick at the bones and eat the skin. And they wonder why they are hungry all the time sitting up in a dead tree staring stupidly at each other. Thes birds can be found in parts of Africa on the dusty savanah’s stalking other animals such as lions or tigers or other big cats or wild dogs. They follow these animals around because they know that they’re not going to let themselves go hungry like the vultures would.

The vulture has no predators anything that comes in the face of the vulture it vomits in their face and just flys away. Vultures can digest even the rotten of meat that other animals would’nt even bother looking at or if they did eat it, it would kill any other animal on the face of the earth. Unlike other birds Vultures dont build nests I put this down to their laziness, they can fly for hours an tail winds and updrafts they very rarely fly as such. They have an excelent sense of smell which helps them find their food, they urinate on their feet to cool off and disinfect their feet. Vultures are bald to stop the bacteria sticking to their heads and whatever does gets burned off by the sun. There are 20 different species of vulture they aren’t as lazy as the common one but not to far off in either direction. They can grow up to 1.4 meters in lenght and weigh up to 12 kg, they feed on dead animals and can live up to 20 years of age. 

Owls

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Owls

All these birds hunt during the light or dim light so far that I’ve mentioned these Owls can see in complete darkness and are the most patient of them all. There are over 220 species of owl, some owls in parts of Africa and Asia have been known to eat other birds while they sleep, the others feed on small rodents, insects, and reptiles. Most owls are silent fliers thats what makes them a deadly hunter, Ninjas base some of their  movement on some of these animals tactics. A small few of the species are day walkers meaning the hunt during the day mostly at dusk and dawn, Pygmy Owl, Burrowing Owl and the Short eared Owl are some of these day walkers.

Owls have to move their heads in order to see left or right because their eyes are fixed into their head, by this I mean it would be like turning a video camera, you have to turn the whole camera and not just the lens, their head can turn 359 degrees in rotation to compensate for this problem. Leaving no blind spot for the prey to take advantage of to try and shake the owl. Owls swallow their prey whole and regurgitate pellets of indigestable such as bone and fur or feathers.