IDENTITY:

Large falon, although smaller, slimmer-winged and less pwerful than saker Falcon, Adult has rufous crown, dark stripe through eye extending to nape, narrow but long and prominent dark moustanchial stripe, brownish-grey to dark brown upperparts (can be greyer han illlustrated), and rather uniform uppertail. Underparts and underwint-coverts vary, canbe largely white or heavily streaked, but lower flanks and things ussually wholly dark brown; typically shows dark panel across underwint-coverts. Juvenile similar to adult, bhut crown duller, moustachial is broader, and underparts very heavily streaked (almost entierly dark on belly, flanks and unerwing-coverts), and has greyish bare parts; differs from juvenile Peregrine in paler crown, finer moustanchial stripe, more heavily marked underparts, and unbarred uppertail.

HABIT AND HABITAT:

Usually seen perched on a regularly used vantage point. Such as treetop or post. Also circles high overhead. Hunts mainly by flying rapidly and low and seizing prey on the ground. Open arid country, cultivation, thronscrub, scrub desert, roky escarpments and sand dunes in plains and low hills.

FOOD:

These falcon species feed mostly on birds, especially game birds and passerines. They also feed on small mammals and lizards.

VOICE:

They appear slender with long wings and tail. Their call is a loud we-ee-ee sound.

INFO:

The laggar falcon (Falco jugger) is a mid-sized bird of prey which occurs in the Indian subcontinent from extreme southeastern Iran, southeastern Afghanistan, Pakistan, through India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and northwestern Myanmar. It resembles the lanner falcon but is darker overall, and has blackish "trousers" (tibiotarsus feathers). Fledglings have an almost entirely dark underside, and first-year subadult birds still retain much dark on the belly. This species belongs to a close-knit complex of falcons known as hierofalcons. In this group, there is ample evidence for rampant hybridization and incomplete lineage sorting which confounds analyses of DNA sequence data to a massive extent; molecular studies with small sample sizes can simply not be expected to yield reliable conclusions in the entire hierofalcon group. The radiation of the entire living diversity of hierofalcons seems to have taken place in the Eemian interglacial at the start of the Late Pleistocene, a mere 130,000-115,000 years ago; the laggar falcon represents a lineage that arrived at its present range out of eastern Africa by way of the Arabian Peninsula which during that time had a more humid climate than today. Juvenile Laggar Falcon Laggar falcons used to be the most common falcons in the region, but numbers have declined markedly in recent times and today it is probably nowhere a common species anymore. The main threats are the intensification of pesticide use in the region and use as a decoy to trap large falcons.