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Please check out the 2^nd circular with the full program of the September Conference on Short-toed Eagle and conservation of Mediterranean Raptors (It): Programma del Convegno “Sotto il segno del biancone” [Program of the meeting “Under the Sign of Short-toed Eagle”] – ; the last corrected version of the second day’s agenda – .

Our sincere gratitude to Francesco Petretti again!

Please get detailed information about the September Conference on Short-toed Eagle: Sotto il segno del biancone [Under the Sign of Short-toed Eagle] – (It).

Many thanks to Francesco Petretti for sharing this!

From the 10^th to the 12^th of September 2015 the Conference on the Short-toed Eagle (Circaetus gallicus) will be held in the Museum of Natural History of Maremma, Grosseto, Italy /map/.

Original contributions on the morphology, behaviour, general ecology, conservation and distribution of the Short-toed Eagle are welcome. The Conference will be anticipated by a workshop on the 10^th of September on conservation projects of raptors in the Mediterranean.

The communication could be presented either in Italian or English, French and Spanish languages and will be published in Acta of the Museum of Natural History of Maremma. The deadline for the subscription is 30^th June 2015.

For further information, application form and instructions to the authors please contact:

› subscription:
Ms. Paola Mariotti – segreteria@museonaturalemaremma.it

› scientific contributions:
Prof. Francesco Petretti – okapia.studium@virgilio.it

One more season of Short-toed Eagles’ stay in Europe has begun recently. Observers watched the first scenes of their breeding activity. Please enjoy some pictures and photos:

Breeding and survey season 2014 started with a rainy day in Maremma, Central Italy /map/. In spite of the bad weather, the pair was doing its job and this is my 38^th year with the Short-toed Eagles.

Francesco Petretti (www.francescopetretti.it)

At the first blush the pictures by Francesco are simple and rough, but they are accurate and for an experienced observer all the depicted scenes are easy to imagine in reality.

Bernard Joubert observed the same Short-toed Eagles at their old nest in Haute-Loire /map/ since March 10^th. The pair occupied the nest also in 2009 and 2012 years. A special hide allows getting unique knowledge of the behaviour of the eagles and taking magnificent photos. According to a recent message from Bernard, the female has finally chosen another nest – one that was occupied in 2013.

My observations at breeding sites of ST Eagles in Kiev Region /map/ began on April 5^th. Like in Haute-Loire the same old pair at first seems to be going to occupy the same nest, for 4^th year in a row. Now we have to wait and see what will happen next.

Francesco Petretti reports the findings of a long term study of the feeding ecology of two populations of Short-toed Eagle in Western Central Italy /map/: Maremma Regional Park /map/ and Tolfa hills. In both areas snakes represented the bulk of the diet, but there were significant differences in the selection of prey species with a higher number of “not-conventional prey species”, e.g. mammals and toads, in Maremma Regional Park and a stronger predation on Hierophis (Zamenis) viridiflavus in Tolfa hills. The study is in progress and will be implemented in 2014.

• Francesco Petretti, 2012 – Ecologia alimentare del Biancone (Circaetus gallicus) in due aree di studio in Italia Centrale [Feeding ecology of Short-toed Eagle in two study areas in Central Italy] – (It) – presentation, 20 pages.

The presentation is published on the Stazione Romana Osservazione e Protezione Uccelli (SROPU) website. It contains tables, diagrams and beautiful photos of Short-toed Eagles and snakes.

Please visit a website of Francesco Petretti – www.francescopetretti.it. It is updated weekly and you can find on it reports about observations of Short-toed Eagles in Central Italy /map/ containing some photos of them. There are several ways to get information on the subject: to search by keywords, for example, «Circaetus»; just to use the tags, such as «Short-toed Eagle» or «Biancone» etc.

A story of life and death of one Short-toed Eagle ringed by Francesco Petretti in Western Central Italy /map/ in 1989 is represented below:

The eagle was born on the 18^th of May 1989 in Tolfa Hills, 40 km north of Rome. The parental pair built the nest on a very large deciduous oak tree covered with ivy on the north facing slope of the hill, at 400 metres of altitude.

On the 27^th of June 1989 P0845 reached the maximum weight of 1,800 grams, then the weight decreased, as it is usual among fledging eagles in the study area, and on the 17^th of July, when the eagle left the nest, she weighed 1,680 grams. She was fitted with a backpack radio for ground telemetry and moved within the home range for a couple of months. Contact with her was lost on the 20^th of September 1989, when the eagle probably left the area to reach the wintering ground in Africa.

On the 16^th of September 2012 the body of P0845 was found dead at a distance of only 9 km from the ringing site. The body was brought to the Raptor Center in Vico Lake Nature Reserve, but death causes are unknown. P0845 was at least 23 years and 4 months old and I suppose this is a longevity record for the species.