Thesis (BS Biology) -- University of the Philippines Mindanao, 2007

The feeding habits of Philipine eagle (Pithecophaega jefferyi Olgivie-Grant) pair and its eaglet were studied in one of the oldest known nesting sites locate at Sitio Mamaon, Barangay Sibulan, Toril, Davao City. The nesting site is situated to both agricultural and residential areas. Direct visual observation was done from My 05, 2006 until the young left the nest on August 10, 2006. Feeding behavior of the eaglet disclosed in two separate types of eating described as Dependent Teaching Eating (DTE) and Independent Learning Eating (ILE) and later on developed the Fully-Independent-Learning Eating (FLIE). There were 73 identified prey items eaten by the Philippine Eagle with five (5) others which were not clearly ascertained. Flying lemur (Cynocephalus volans) was the most numerous prey item which comprises about 27.94% of the total diet. Coleto (Sarcops calvus) having 1.47% was the least frequent prey type. Interestingly, domestic animals such as dog (canis familiaris), cat (Felis catus) and chicken (Gallus domesticus) were also found delivered by the Philippine eagle pair comprising 4.41%, 2.94% and 10.91% respectively. More interestingly, this study has the first records of the occurrence of domestic animals on the diet of the Philippine Eagle. In most cases the diet of the eagle pair with their eaglet do not normally include domestic animals except on cases when their natural ways were unavailable and may be hiding due to inclement weather condition. Prey delivery rate was 0.75 which suggests that there is 1 prey per day. The male parent delivered 46.30% (n=25) to the nesting territory while the female parent delivered 53.70% (n=29) and it was unidentified which of the parents delivered the 26.02% prey items (n=19) due to foggy weather condition making visualization difficult. The computed Shannon?s index to assess the diversity of the location of the nesting site revealed H=2.27 and an evenness =0.53. Food habits data from this observation would be useful in understanding of the important of prey species of the eagles in the wild, abundance and diversity of the species found in the area and could be useful in developing future management and conservation strategies