Museum of Life and Science in Durham, NC

Many people that know me are aware of the fact that I love birds.  I especially like birds of prey and parrots.  Being, that I am a new blogger, I decided to do a few posts about birds.  In this one, I am going to introduce you to Birds of prey and raptors.  All raptors are birds of prey, but not all birds of prey are raptors. Confused?  Well, a raptor is defined as birds that kill prey with its feet while a bird of prey refers to birds that are carnivorous.  An example of that would be a hawk is a raptor and a vulture is a bird of prey.   They fall under the order of Falconiformes and are under  different families.   Nocturnal birds, such as owls are under the family of Strigiformes.

A bird of preys senses are all geared to one purpose,eating.   Take for example its eyes.  Birds will hunt mainly with its eyes,they can pick up at least four times the amount of detail of something then a human can.  Some birds have great hearing, such as an owl who hunts with little light available.  These hunters also have bills that are shaped for specific foods they eat.Some are designed for tearing through skin and muscle and breaking bones.Some beaks are made for pulling certain foods from inside shells such as the snail kite. Many people don’t know that a birds sense of smell isn’t the greatest.  However, most vultures have exceptional smelling abilities to sniff out that  yummy rotten carcass on the side of the road.  Feet are very important to a raptor, it  is the main method of killing its prey because sharp talons will pierce through skin and muscle.   The coloration of raptors are made for blending in with their environment.   Another feature is flight, some birds soar,some dive,some birds ambush and some hunt out in the open.   I hope to do another blog on this subject alone.

The last thing I wanted to mention was conservation of the birds of prey species.   Many of them are on the threatened list.   Some of this has to do with people shooting birds like Misha.   Others are in trouble because of their place in the food chain,they are one of the top dogs, or should I say birds on the order.  When its prey is affected such as fish being poisoned, it effects the birds as well.

Hopefully, you were able to take some information away with you on birds of prey.   Like I said before, I intend to do several posts about birds.   If you have any requests, let me know.

Photo by Rolf Hicker