Chatterchaser

A sleek and social hunter, this ground-dwelling sparrowgull shows that even more primitive sorts of birds remain strongly competitive in the hothouse ecosystem.

Chatterchasers are a species of fairly large terrestrial sparrowgulls living on Serinarcta's upland regions, which evolved from one population of blue-tailed chatteraven that began hunting on the ground after the end of the ice age. This species is now far larger, weighing 30 lbs and standing 4 feet high, and resembles a seriema, to which it has much in common behaviorally. Though it can still fly, it much prefers to run - and it finds all of its food on the ground, chasing it down with its long legs and killing it with a strong kick, stabbing prey with a blade-like first toe that once helped its ancestors to perch. Repurposing this toe in this way so that it now sits off the ground, the chatterchaser walks on just two toes per foot.

These birds are social and live in clans much like their ancestors. Their social groups are usually based on a breeding pair and several generations of non-breeding offspring or unrelated helpers which assist in caring for the dominant pair's offspring at a nest site located above ground on a cliff, boulder, or cementree spire. Most often every individual forages alone by day, with the group splitting up and covering a wide territory. This is the most efficient way to locate and capture small prey such as poppits and snifflers, which are easily dispatched by just one adult alone and which would be frightened away by the entire clan. Chatterchasers hunting this way may subdue many small animals in a good day, each one storing them all mostly intact in its crop so that by the time they return to the den site where the chicks are kept, their throat is greatly distended. All adults usually take turns foraging in this way, regurgitating the whole prey and then carefully tearing it into small pieces for the babies. When not hunting, other adults take the role of babysitters to make sure the chicks are safe. These adults are fed in the same way by the days' hunters and so paid for their work, as in many cooperative species, and though it's more common for all adults to alternate hunting or childcare duties some individuals excel so much at one or the other that they may take on one job full-time.

The chatterchaser gets most of its dietary needs from small prey, often weighing under 1 lb. On occasion, however, they will cooperate to subdue big game, even animals several times the size of one adult, and demonstrate that these birds aren't only simple birds of prey; they are small, highly intelligent terror birds. Relays to tire out small trunkos - snoots or even small wumpos - or other fast-running herd animals may occur when small prey is scarce or whenever the opportunity presents itself. When hunting this way most of the clan works together to catch and kill their victims, with some clans using culturally-transmitted use of tools such as rocks dropped from the air to aid in bringing down their quarry or bludgeoning it to death. Chatterchasers can reach speeds of 35 miles per hour in bursts several minutes long, and often position themselves so another takes over the chase when the first tires, and so on, so as to exhaust their prey. The response of many animals in Serinarcta's open habitats is to run and seek shelter in water when pursued, but chatterchasers can still fly, and so this often backfires with the prey being overwhelmed and drowned as the birds take flight and land atop its back, forcing it under.