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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brilsly" data-source="post: 1269314" data-attributes="member: 68493">I found it in the Collins manual, but I can't seem to find anything formally published anywhere (although I have yet to check BWP, which I guess would be the final word on it). I'm thinking that you could do a study on it, you'd have to be able to categorise two different types of "hunts", ones which involved putative flight mimicry and ones that didn't. Then you'd have to show that there were significant differences in the flight characteristics of the raptor. Finally you'd have to show that there were significant differences in the approach distance pre-chase (i.e. the prey species were behaving as if the predator wasn't recognised as such, or at least it was considered to be non-threatening). How you'd define pre and during-chase would be pretty tricky - maybe the flapping speed of the prey species would indicate active escape? I'd be interested in having a crack at doing some kind of study if anyone was up for it? By the way, the most comprehensive reference I can find on predator recognition in birds seems to be a chapter by McLean and Rhodes in Current Ornithology (Vol. 8) edited by Dennis Power (in case anyone wants to have a closer look).</blockquote>