According to ornithologists, representatives of some species combine eating fresh food with carrion. For example, the fish eagle, like a number of closely related birds, mainly feeding on live prey, may well feed on the corpses of mammals.
Who are scavengers and what are they?
Among the birds of prey, there are representatives of specialized forms that currently feed almost exclusively on carrion. Among the most striking examples of scavengers are the common vulture, griffon vulture, Indian long-eared vulture, as well as the bearded vulture or lamb - all of which are found in Eurasia and Africa. In America, such birds include the condor, the king's vulture, and the uruba vulture, also known as the American black catarta.
Many birds in the past were predators, changing over time this type of food for the use of carrion.
Birds of all these species have a fairly large bearing surface, they are very well adapted to long flights - after all, this is how they search for the corpses of large animals. In the process of evolution, their claws became blunt and weak, making their paws practically unsuitable for hunting live prey.
Having found a target, scavengers begin to eat away internal organs, then continuing to peck carrion from the inside. According to scientists, these can be explained by their very long, and sometimes, as, for example, in American vultures, bare neck. It is assumed that in the process of evolution, plumage does not prevent scavengers from pecking out the carcass of a dead animal, and decaying food debris does not remain on their necks.
Among scavengers, there are those who prefer the already rather decomposed carcasses of animals (for example, the griffon vulture), and such as the bearded vulture, who choose exclusively fresh meat. The process of food absorption is also different - if the vulture, eating carrion from the inside, as a result does not touch the skin, tendons and skeleton, then the vagrants feed mainly on bones. It is interesting that the stomach of these birds copes well with such seemingly heavy food. Even their chicks bearded with bones, which can reach a length of up to 20 cm.
Scavenger lifestyle
Many scavenger species can flock to prey. They usually join together in the search for carcasses, hovering together in the air. Urubu vultures behave differently - these birds often sit on the upper branches of trees, trying to catch the smell, therefore, in comparison with other scavengers, they have a very well developed sense of smell and olfactory apparatus.
The buffoon eagle, which lives in Africa, prefers to feed mainly on snakes and lizards, but readily feeds on carrion. There are cases when they attacked vultures, forcing them to regurgitate what they ate.
Scavengers approach their prey in different ways: an urubu, for example, can literally fall on a carcass, spotting it from a height. Only above the ground does it open its huge wings, and bearded men, on the contrary, are able to circle in the air for quite a long time, gradually decreasing. Having descended at some distance from their prey, they sit on the ground, and then slowly begin to walk towards it.
