Stomach Flushing of an Insectivorous Bird - an Assessment of Differential Digestibility of Prey and the Risk to Birds

The effectiveness of stomach flushing as a method for determining diet was tested experimentally on captive white-fronted chats, Ephthianura albifrons. The relative retrieval rates of six taxa of prey depended on their size and the durability of identifiable parts. For Scatella sp. (Diptera), flushing was best performed 15 min after ingestion. Stomach flushing produced a better recovery rate (up to 70% of fly wings) than faecal analysis (2%). Birds were each flushed 14 times without mortality and recapture rates of 319 wild birds which had been flushed did not differ from 364 unflushed birds.