Circaetus gallicus information navigator

Please take a look at the map of main survey area /map/. General description and photos can be viewed below:

15 pairs are surveyed since 1996 in the west of department, on the slopes of the huge hercynian massif of Margeride. Very few human activities in valleys. None intensive agricultural practices on the boarding plateaux (cattle: cow, sheep). Birds nest in V-shaped valleys of the Allier and tributaries, between 700 and 950 m above sea level. Eyries generally on pines, sometimes on firs. Usually nest areas are quiet.
Diet is based on few species: Elaphe longissima (chiefly), Vipera aspis (often), Anguis fragilis (especially during cool and rainy periods), sometimes Coronella. Lizards: Lacerta viridis and Podarcis muralis.

Site 1. Breeding site: Nest on the left of the valley (yellow circle), on a pine. Other nests on the other side (green circle: fir now dead because of Ips and al.), and at the end of a valley’s branch (orange circle).
Altitude: 870 m. Exposition: SW. Breeding success rate: 0.66 (n=12).

Site 2. Breeding site: 2008’s is nest in yellow circle. On the border of an oakwood and a pinewood. Nest on a pine. Two other eyries are known, one of which in the green circle, in the concavity of the mountain.
Altitude: 760 m. Exposition: SSE. Breeding success rate: 0.45 (n=11). Bad rate because site at the crossroad of flight paths of other birds, for hunting areas.

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Different videos of Short-toed Eagle are being uploaded to YouTube permanently. We told before about this resource and also we used it to insert videos into the site. As an example of the new accessions you can view this one. Watch please flying Short-toed Eagles on the background of the sea and see in detail their flight not for the hunt. Los Alcornocales Natural Park /map/.

Contributor: Richard Frèze.
Country: France. Region: Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Departement: Bouches-du-Rhône.

Please take a look at the map of main survey area /map/. General description and photos can be viewed below:

A small population of Short-toed Eagles, of about 10/12 pairs, is studied since 2002. They live on the hills located at the east of the town of Marseilles in the area of “Basse Provence”.
The zone occupies an area of approximately 900 km² but because of strong human activities only a part is favorable to be settled by the birds. Great a difference between hunting and nesting territories can’t be noticed for the region.
The vegetation is made up primarily by scrubland with Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera) and pine forests with Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) mainly.

The majority of the nests are located on slopes exposed to south/south-east and are built on side branches of Aleppo Pines.

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One more series of Short-toed Eagles photos can be viewed here. They all were made in Gironde /map/. These single fragments of the Eagles’ being were caught by Yves Forget (circa33.free.fr) during his observations in 2005-2007 years.

Different birds’ songs with the spectrograms can be found on the Birdsongs.it website. There are two records of Short-toed Eagle’s calls among them at the moment. Here you can use a special form to search voices of other birds.

Watch please some short videos of hovering Short-toed Eagles, which are put on Dailymotion.com. Typical movements of wings, tail and neck are well seen. They allow the eagles to keep their heads still.

Let us invite you to take part in common collection of short descriptions of Short-toed Eagles biotopes in different regions. This idea belongs to Bernard Joubert. The project aims to describe the whole area of the species distribution. It should be something like collection of photos of typical for Short-toed Eagles hunting and breeding territories with short notes about the authors, their comments, which will be connected with a map. The test version of it can be viewed here. Please, if you have some propositions, we would be glad to discuss them – info@short-toed-eagle.net; or as a comment to this post.