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The following articles have been published online this month. In the first one Ugo Mellone summarizes and analyzes results of many years of research on the migration of birds of prey through and around the Mediterranean Sea. The pattern of most circuitous migration route is exhibited by Short-toed Snake Eagle:

• Ugo MELLONE, 2020 – Sea crossing as a major determinant for the evolution of migratory strategies in soaring birds // Journal of Animal Ecology, 89 (6): pp.1298-1301. doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13241 (En).

The next paper is dedicated to the complex roadkill study. Unexpectedly, STE gets on the top 10 of the most vulnerable species of Europe:

• Clara GRILO, Elena KOROLEVA, Richard ANDRÁŠIK, Michal BÍL, Manuela GONZÁLEZ‐SUÁREZ, 2020 – Roadkill risk and population vulnerability in European birds and mammals // Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. doi:10.1002/fee.2216 (En).

Kunal Kambli in his recent post for The Weather Channel writes that Short-toed Eagle is among the species whose populations in India have declined in last years according to:

• SoIB 2020. State of India’s Birds, 2020: Range, trends and conservation status. The SoIB Partnership. Pp 50. – (En).

Unlike others, the population of Short-toeds in India is settled. Although, there are no more or less exact evaluations of its current size, it is undoubtedly significant, and the species is under highest legal protection in the country. However, the short- and long-term negative trends are ascertained on the background of the global population trend estimated as stable. This is a kind of unpleasant surprise and causes of the local population decline deserve to be figured out and analysed in details.

La Plume du Circaète n° 18 – (Fr) {rough translation} was released and timed to the 5th Circaetus meeting in Gémenos; with full-size images (8.9 MB) – . The list of contents:

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Many thanks to Bernard Joubert, Jean-Pierre Malafosse, Renaud Nadal and all the authors of the bulletin for sharing their data and ideas!

This year the 5^th meeting dedicated to Short-toed Eagle in France will be held in Gémenos, Bouches-du-Rhône /map/. The main contact persons: Richard FRÈZE, Renaud NADAL, Bernard JOUBERT and Jean-Pierre MALAFOSSE. The agenda includes the following topics: development of the national Circaetus network; some biological, ecological and behavioural considerations; reproduction and conservation of Short-toed Eagles in various regions of the country; examination of nests and others. More details in the file: (Fr).

Örs the satellite-tagged Short-toed Eagle, marked as a juvenile in 2017, has returned to Hungary after two years. He hatched in the area of the Kiskunság National Park /map/ being famous for hosting the only known nesting population in the Hungarian lowlands. He spent the past winter in the Sahel Zone on the border of Sudan and South Sudan, a regular wintering area for the species. On the last day of March, he packed up and started his northbound migration, however, he stopped in Central Turkey and we were worried that he would spend the entire summer there again, after the summer of 2018. Fortunately, he decided to move on on June 24 and to our delight, he reached the border between Croatia and Hungary a bit more than a week later. Since then, he paid a visit to Burgenland, Austria and Western Slovakia where he stopped at military bases, which were probably familiar for him since he was born in one of those in Hungary. Recently, he has been in Northwestern Hungary, an area where observations of this species are quite rare.

We hope eventually he will visit his home ground and may also mark a few, so far unknown, territories in the Kiskunság area.

Gábor Papp

The map of Örs’ tracks is available on SATELLITETRACKING.EU.

The Lublin Ornithology Society started their projects on GPS-GSM telemetry of local adult Short-toed Eagles in 2012. Some results of them are available on sites of the society, as well as conservation programs. Just use the Polish name of the species «Gadożer» as a search word to find info regarding Short-toeds in the submitted files:

Also, you can read some fresh news about observations of local Short-toed Eagles on the LTO page on Facebook, and enjoy this short video taken at the nest of a pair where the male is tagged with the GPS-GSM transmitter.

La Plume du Circaète n° 16-17 – (Fr) {rough translation} has been recently published. As usual, various unusual events, observations, ideas are reported in it. The list of contents (En):

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Thanks a lot to Bernard Joubert, Jean-Pierre Malafosse, Renaud Nadal and all the authors of the bulletin for sharing their materials!