[BlackRockArt]

Hi y'all, I was going through some old photos & found a series of White Tail Kite having lunch. After plucking out guts, heart, stomach of the vole, he tore off a piece of skin with furs to swallow.

Does any expert birder know the reason of eating this ? I thought kite would prefer lean meat.

Thanks

Oliver

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[NorthernFocus]

As far as I know they eat the whole thing. They can digest the skin and bone. Fur is the only thing they have to spit back up.

 

[Icarus]

They usually remove guts prey because that's where they're most likely to pick up parasites/disease. If they're starving or very hungry, they eat everything. Anything they can't digest, they cast up, but that's usually just fur. Owls on the otherhand don't have the same amount of acidity in their digestive tract and cast up bone as well as hair.