Humans, cats, chipmunks, other birds, snakes, frogs, dogs, deer, coyotes, and many more. 
(Photo © Dave W.)Book recommendation: A great book about survival is: Flutes Journey by Lynne Cherry A young Wood Thrush named Flute makes its first migration from its nesting ground in a Maryland forest to its winter home in Costa Rica, and back again.
Phylogeny edit
The clade that includes passerines, several near-passerine lineages, and birds of prey is called Telluraves, and the simplified phylogeny of this group is shown below. [18][10][19] The orders for birds of prey are bolded to highlight the group’s paraphyly and their connections to other birds.
| Telluraves |
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A recent phylogenomic study from Wu et al. (2024) has discovered a different phylogeny to explain where the birds of prey are located. Support for their analysis can be found in a new clade called Hieraves that includes the Strigiformes and Accipitrimorphae. It was also discovered that Hieraves is the sister clade of Australaves, which comprises Psittacopasserae, Falconiformes, and Cariamiformes. Below is their phylogeny from the study. [20].
| Telluraves |
|
Migration edit
Migratory behaviour evolved multiple times within accipitrid raptors. An obliged point of transit of the.
The first known event happened between 14 and 12 million years ago. In the case of birds of prey, this finding appears to be among the earliest dates that have been released to date. [11] That study, for instance, corroborated an earlier reconstruction of migratory behavior in a single Buteo clade[16] that arose from migration approximately 5 million years ago.
Given that all of the major lineages within Accipitridae appear to have originated in one of the biogeographic realms of the Southern Hemisphere, raptors that migrate may have had a southern origin. Alongside migratory species’ range expansion into temperate habitats, migratory behavior first emerged in the tropics. [11] The literature contains comparable findings of southern origin in other taxonomic groups. [21][22][23].
The origin of migration in raptors is largely determined by their distribution and biogeographic history. Some comparative analyses suggest that diet breadth has an impact on how migratory behavior has evolved in this group [11], but more research is necessary to determine the significance of this finding. There are still a lot of unsolved questions regarding the complexity and difficulty of animal migration evolution.
New links between migration and the ecology and life history of raptors were found in a recent study. An overview of the published paper’s abstract reveals that “the most significant factors in determining distribution areas have been shown to be clutch size and hunting strategies; additionally, geographic dissimilarities may obscure significant relationships between life history traits and migratory behaviors.” Due to the existence or lack of ecological barriers, the migratory systems of the West Palearctic-Afrotropical and North-South American differ significantly from the East Palearctic-Indomalayan system. [24] The question of why some species winter in one place while others do so elsewhere can be addressed with the aid of maximum entropy modeling. Different factors related to temperature and precipitation limit the distribution of different species. This implies that the three primary migratory routes for these species differ in their migratory behaviors[24], which could have significant conservation implications for the preservation of migratory raptors.
Modern systematics edit
It is estimated that the order Accipitriformes split from the common ancestor of the accipitrid species and the secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) 44 million years ago. [11] It is challenging to understand the intricate phylogeny of Accipitriformes. Widespread paraphylies were observed in many phylogenetic studies. [12][13][14][15][16] More recent and detailed studies show similar results. [17] Nonetheless, a 2014 study’s conclusions indicated that the sister relationship between Accipitriformes’ larger clades was strongly supported (e g. relationship between Harpagus kites and buzzards and sea eagles, which are sister taxa of the clade that includes Aquilinae and Harpiinae, along with Accipiter hawks.) [11].
Formally speaking, the nocturnal raptors are divided into six families belonging to three distinct orders: Accipitriformes, Falconiformes, and Cariamiformes.
These families are now divided into two orders, the Falconiformes and Accipitriformes, after previously being placed under the same order Falconiformes (with the exception of Cariamidae). The Cathartidae are occasionally categorized independently within the larger Ciconiiformes family of storks, and they may even be elevated to their own order, Cathartiiformes.
There are instances where the osprey and/or secretary bird are classified as subfamilies of Acciptridae, namely Sagittariinae and Pandioninae, respectively.
Despite being a nocturnal bird, Australia’s letter-winged kite belongs to the Accipitridae family of birds.
The owls, which are nocturnal predators, belong to two distinct families within the order Strigiformes.
- Strigidae: “typical owls”
- Tytonidae: barn and bay owls
FAQ
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