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Hansruedi Wildermuth, Beat Schneider

Bachstelzen Motacilla alba auf Libellenjagd

2025

122

174–184

Key words
(von 1994 bis 2006 vergeben)

Nahrung, Prädation, Insekten, Libellen

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(wissenschaftlich)

Motacilla flava, Motacilla citreola, Motacilla cinerea, Motacilla alba

Schlagwort_Vogelart
(deutsch)

Schafstelze, Zitronenstelze, Gebirgsstelze, Bachstelze

Weiach, Kaltbrunner Riet, Jona, Rüti, Bolnisistsqali, Georgien

deutsch

Abhandlung

White Wagtails Motacilla alba hunting dragonflies – White Wagtails feed mainly on small flies and mosquitoes, as well as other insects on occasion. Their prey spectrum also includes dragonflies. Based on direct observations, photographs, and film recordings mainly done at a gravel pit pond, we describe in detail the behaviour of wagtails when hunting dragonflies as well as the reactions of the insects to the predatorʼs attacks. The White Wagtails searched for their food either by walking along the waterline or catching it in flight. They started their hunting flights from the shallow gravel bank, sometimes also from an elevated perch. They mainly preyed on emerging and teneral damselflies, which reacted to attacks by dropping or hiding behind the emergence substrate by «sidling». Flying dragonflies, especially tandems of the Common Blue Damselfly Enallagma cyathigerum, were pursued above the water surface and captured in sometimes acrobatic flight manoeuvres. The success rate for 57 hunting flights was 77% (44 successful hunts). During their breeding season, White Wagtails collected larvae ready to emerge and freshly emerged dragonflies on the banks of the pond and carried them to the nest as a bundle in their beak.