Diet of the lesser kestrel Falco naumanni at post-breeding roosts in southern Albania
Published Online: Apr 30, 2021
Page range: 15 - 22
Received: Sep 17, 2020
Accepted: Nov 20, 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/srj-2020-0004
Keywords
© 2020 Anton Krištín et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The lesser kestrel is an insectivorous and migratory falcon species, frequently using communal roosts in the post-breeding period in southern Europe. Using pellet analysis from two post-breeding roosting sites in southern Albania collected in August 2017, we identified 1539 prey items belonging to approximately 58 prey species, 20 families and 7 orders in 110 pellets from two sites. Invertebrates made up the major part of the diet spectrum (PNI = 99.8 %, PFI = 100 %). Invertebrate prey body size varied between 8 and 62 mm (mean 28.1 mm). Bush-crickets (Tettigoniidae) and locusts (Acrididae) were the most abundant and frequent prey groups (PNI = 33 % resp. 48.6 % and PFI = 97 % resp. 94 %). Within the bush-cricket family we could identify the species of genera