Société nationale de protection de la nature et d'acclimatation de France, Paris (FRA)
Abstract
The daily consumption of food by some tropical, mostly insectivorous, birds has been studied in Ivory Coast savana-forest mosaic. Different techniques were used : weights of the stomach contents at the end of the activity period, estimates of the quantity of food brought to nestlings at the end of their growth period, estimates of the number of prey items caught by adults during the day, amount of food eaten by captive individuals. For birds whose body weights ranged from 100 to 1,500 g, the daily ration was on average only half of that of their pale- artic or nearctic counterparts. The overall food consumption of the Rollers and Raptors in the Lamto savana averaged 12 g/ha/day - which, on a yearly basis, corresponds to about half of the production of the prey species concerned
