Family:
The red-footed falcon is a small falcon with a rounded head, short, stubby bill, and fanned tail. The male has slate-grey plumage with paler underparts, silvery flight feathers, and a chestnut belly, undertail coverts, and thighs. The head and neck are darker grey. The bill has a red cere and black tip, the dark eyes have an orange eyering, and the legs and feet are red with horn-coloured claws.
The female has blue-grey upperparts with and pale rufous underparts. The flight feathers and tail are grey with dark bars above and white bars below. On the head, the crown and nape are rufous, the cheeks are white, there is a dark eyepatch and a dark moustache. The bill, legs, and feet are orange.
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Red-footed falcons eat mainly insects, primarily, grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts, but also beetles, dragonflies, butterflies, and moths. On their wintering grounds they will supplement their diet with flying ants and termites caught on the wing.
Chicks are fed on small mammals, birds, lizards, and amphibians.
Red-footed falcons breed in southern Russia, eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Hungary, Romania, and Serbia, and central Asia. It can be found in open woodland, on farmland, and steppes often near water. It migrates far south for the winter to sub-Saharan Africa.
One Response
Seen in buda side of Budapest at 20.15 on 7th of August 2025