THE BARN OWLS OF PAKISTAN : HABITAT, FOOD AND BREEDING HABITS

ISBN-13: 9783639146684 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 168 str.

Muhammad Mahmood-ul-Hassan

Opis

We studied the feeding and breeding ecology of the barn owl (Tyto alba setertens) in the agroecosystems of eight districts of Pakistan. The owl nested away from the human habitation and depended mainly on old trees which were often located within the premises of Canal Rest Houses. The analysis of the 2360 regurgitated pelleted revealed that the house shrew (suncus murinus) dominated all diet samples (65.5%) in Punajb. The rats and mice (28%), birds (4.2%), and bats (2.0%) were also consumed in central Punjab. shrews (59%), birds(19%), rats and mice (13%) and insects (7%) were the main prey in southern Punjab, whereas rats and mice (93%), shrews(4%), amphibians and reptiles (3%) were the main prey in southeastern Baluchistan. The house shrew was the most common item in winter (78%) and was consumed the least during summer (27%). Egg-laying was observed between second week of August and October (n = 23) with a smaller number of nests (n = 5) recoreded in May-July. The mean clutch size averaged 5.83 eggs (SE = 0.47; range 1-12; N = 23) and brood size averaged 4.15 nestlings (SE = 0.28; range = 2-5; N = 20)

O autorze

I became interested in studying bats in 2004 when I failed to find the name of any bat biologist from Pakistan in the CAMP
Workshop report on Chiroptera of the South Asia in 2003. With the
help of Sally Walker, I was able to meet Prof. Dr. Paul A. Racey
at Nepal in 2006 who refined the the first bat project on bats of
Pakistan.