Home range and activity of African goshawks Accipiter tachiro in relation to their predation on bats

Abstract

Winter radio-tracking of 3 African goshawks showed that they each occupied well-wooded home ranges of at least 28 ha. They perched and roosted mainly within densely foliaged trees. An adult female changed perches on average 4.7 times per hour. No crepuscular predation of bats was recorded in contrast to regular summer predation on colonies of little free-tailed bats Tadarida pumila, but winter emergence rates of these bats at dusk had dropped to ≤5% of the previous summer. -from Authors