Incidence of Cartwheeling Flights in Raptors of South-Central Chile

Victor Raimilla; Tomás Rivas-Fuenzalida; Alejandro Kusch; José Díaz; Jorge Toledo; Álvaro García; Jaime E. Jiménez

doi:10.1676/wils-127-02-289-297.1

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1 June 2015 Incidence of Cartwheeling Flights in Raptors of South-Central Chile

Victor Raimilla, Tomás Rivas-Fuenzalida, Alejandro Kusch, José Díaz, Jorge Toledo, Álvaro García, Jaime E. Jiménez

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The Wilson J. of Ornithology, 127(2):289-297 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1676/wils-127-02-289-297.1

Abstract

Cartwheeling flight is a behavior that involves aerial locking of talons by raptors followed by a descending mutual rotation around a central axis, like a cartwheel. We provide information on 32 recorded cartwheeling events from south-central Chile involving 12 raptor species; 26 were by dyads of the same species, of which 61.5% were associated with aggressive events. Only one case was considered a courtship behavior and two as play. Milvago chimango was the most frequently involved in intraspecific cartwheeling (38.5%), whereas Geranoaetus polyosoma had the highest frequency of allospecific encounters (67%). This is the first account on the occurrence of cartwheeling flights in South American raptors, and we suspect that this behavior is more prevalent than has been reported previously.

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Victor Raimilla, Tomás Rivas-Fuenzalida, Alejandro Kusch, José Díaz, Jorge Toledo, Álvaro García, and Jaime E. Jiménez "Incidence of Cartwheeling Flights in Raptors of South-Central Chile," The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 127(2), 289-297, (1 June 2015). https://doi.org/10.1676/wils-127-02-289-297.1

Received: 7 August 2014; Accepted: 1 November 2014; Published: 1 June 2015

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