Gaviãozinho/Pearl Kite/Gampsonyx s swainsonii. Fauna Cuiabana. Cuiaba Basin Fauna Project Pages (CBFPP)

Note dark eyes.  These will lighten as bird matures.

Pearl Kite/Gaviãozinho/Gampsonyx swainsonii

Note horizontal barring on breast and chestnut washing on ear coverts

If there is one thing I love as a naturalist, biologist and veterinarian, it is seeing a new species for the first time.  I don't mean seeing a species new to science.  I can't see myself having that privilege, somehow.  But a species new to me.  That always makes my day.

I have travelled the World in search of 'ticks', as twitchers say.

This week I was seeing practice at a veterinary clinic in a major city in Mato Grosso state, Centra Western Brazil.  It was late in the day, and I was sat in Reception which was the only part of the clinic where the air  conditioning was switched on.

A Resident at one of the local Vets' Schools was introduced to me.  He said he had a colleague interested in falconry.  I gave him my number and a coule of days later she contacted me.

When I last wrote my series of  Cuiabá Basin Fauna Project Pages (CBFPP) these were as a result of the research I was carrying out for my dissertation.  That was handed in some months ago (I qualified as a vet). Today I went to see her work and hearof her proposals.  They turned out to be similar to my own of some years ago when I was a licenced raptor rehabilitator under Brazilian law.  That is, to rehabilitate and release raptors into the wild.

At the veterinary hospital there was the Pearl Kite (see above) and a male Roadside Hawk.  We decided that the Pearl Kite was found as a healthy chick and brought into capitvity (you almost never get a history with these cases). It would likely be a prime candidate for fitness training using falconry techniques and release.

We decided to record some physiological parameters.  We recorded the bird's weight.  Pearl Kites are the smallest raptors in the Neotropics.  We recorded the heart rate (almost at the limit of perception) and respiratory rate.  We managed to record the cloacal temperature and this was high.

On Monday we will measure head width prior to making a hood.

Reference

Ferguson-Lees, J. and Christie, D.A. Raptors of the World.  Helm. 2001.  London.