From Opus

Male
Photo by Alan Manson
Near Mooi River, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, February 2009

Falco amurensis

[edit] Identification

Length 28-30 cm, mass 97-188 g; females larger than males. Cere, eye-ring and legs are red.

Male - slate grey, with a chestnut vent and white underwing coverts.

Female - grey on the top of the head, upperparts grey, underparts whitish, streaked and chevroned with black on upper breast and barred black on the lower belly.

Juvenile - similar to adult female but with rufous edging to feathers of upperparts.

Female Amur Falcon
Photo by rafo1
Masirah Airbase, Oman

[edit] Distribution

South-eastern Siberia and northern China, wintering in southern Africa.

[edit] Taxonomy

Monotypic. ²

[edit] Habitat

In breeding range: Woodland, forest, woodland margins and marshes, prefers mature trees. Winters in savanna and in grasslands with clumps of trees. ^1,3

Juvenile
Photo by 1000miles
Mae Ping National Park, Lumpoon, Thailand, November 2007

[edit] Behaviour

[edit] Diet

The diet includes insects, small birds and occasionally amphibians. It hunts from a perch and captures much of its prey on the wing; sometimes hovers.¹

[edit] Breeding

It nests in a hole in a tree or uses old corvid nests; 3-4 eggs are laid in May–June; the incubation period is about 28–30 days; the young fledge after about one month.

[edit] Reference

1. Answers.com
2. Clements, JF. 2008. The Clements Checklist of Birds of the World. 6th ed., with updates to December 2008. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press. ISBN 978-0801445019. Spreadsheet available at http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist.
3. Hockey, PAR, WRJ Dean, and PG Ryan, eds. 2005. Roberts' Birds of Southern Africa. 7th ed. Cape Town: John Voelcker Bird Book Fund. ISBN 978-0620340533

• List of references

[edit] External Links