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The northern part of Chernihiv Region, so-called the Chernihiv Polissya /map/, is one of the best regions of Ukraine for Short-toed Eagles’ habitation. These lands, rich in Grass Snakes, Vipers, other reptiles and also in old pine forests, provide the eagles with good conditions for foraging and nesting. An expert in Ukrainian birds of prey, Sergey Domashevsky, during the expedition in 2009 has recorded several probable territorial pairs of the eagles there. Some of them were observed between the Sozh, the Dnieper rivers and Zamglay Bog /map/.

This year a local birdwatcher, Artem Skeeter, has found Short-toed Eagles’ nest at a place where he saw them during a few years before. Artem has discovered the nest just after finding of one old tail feather under a perch at the breeding site. He has managed to take a video of feeding the juvenile eagle by its father on a pine within the site. Also photos of the birds have been taken there in 2011-2012 and this year by Artem and by Andrew Simon, Viktor Moroz and me. This year’s juvenile could already fly on August 9. The date is the earliest known in Northern Ukraine for the last 10 years. On September 9 another juvenile Short-toed Eagle, judging by all, an offspring of the neighbour pair, was observed in the hovering flight over typical hunting grounds far from forests, that is unusually early for this region too.

This is just a small photo gallery of ringing Short-toed Eagle chicks in the Zemplén Mountains /map/. The juveniles were ringed by István Béres; the climber and the photographer was József Serfőző.

Gábor Papp reports that 4 eaglets were colour-ringed there this year and also ringing of 2 more was orginized by Zoltán Turny (MME/Birdlife) in Transdanubia /map/ and was done by rangers of Danube-Ipoly National Park at the following sites:
› Vértes – by Antal Klébert and István Staudinger; this is the 2^nd year that the pair use this nest on an oak;
› the Budai Hills – by Bíró Sándor and Zoltán Turny; this is the 4^th year in a row of breeding in this nest on a pine.

We would like to bring to your attention the 5^th gallery of photos taken by Bernard Joubert at a nest of Short-toed Eagle in Haute-Loire /map/. Although the pair has eventually occupied another (last year’s) nest for the breeding, Bernard’s camera has captured scenes of the early nesting behaviour of the birds. Thanks to the researcher, we have a possibility to see unique moments of this eagles’ life once again.

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.

At this time, when Short-toed Eagles are arriving to their breeding sites in northern parts of their European and Asian areal, we would like to draw your attention to the article about Short-toed Eagle from the monograph of Dr. Alexander Abuladze:

• Abuladze A., 2013 – Materials towards a Fauna of Georgia. Is. VI. Birds of Prey of Georgia. – Tbilisi. – 218 pp.: Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus Gmelin, 1788 – P. 65-71. (En).

Heartfelt thanks to the author for sharing the text and photos of habitats! Johannes Jansen‘s review of the book can be found here.

We would like to express our gratitude to Frédéric Pelsy for sharing these not numerous, but marvelous pictures of Short-toed Eagles in Sologne (France) /map/. The male and the females are well recognizable by colouration of their plumage which is seen in detail. Because of that several of the photos have also been added to our Age/Sex handbook.

During 10 years of observations in Central Northern Ukraine (Kiev Region /map/, Mizhrichynskyi Park /map/) a lot of photos of several the same Short-toed Eagles have been taken. Some of them can be viewed in the galleries (just an example). Since Short-toed Eaglers’ the biggest flight feathers are often seen from a great distance they are easily recognizable in photos. Especially it concerns 4th-10th primaries of both wings. Accumulation of data allowed to determine inter-moulting periods of certain feathers:

• K. PISMENNYI, 2013 – Short-toed Eagle. Replacement of the biggest 14 flight feathers // short-toed-eagle.net – (En).

First of all, the results might be of interest as additional information for recognizing individuals in the nature from year to year, together with individually typical plumage colouration and silhouettes in flight at certain angles in certain poses. Regular photographing of Short-toed Eagles at their breeding sites and foraging grounds allows to distinguish them with high probability without special marking, without stressing and often even without disturbing the birds at all.