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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.

Two articles have been discovered on the Net:

• D.E. Bakaloudis, C.G. Vlachos, G.J. Holloway, 2000 – Nest features and nest-tree characteristics of Short-toed Eagles (Circaetus gallicus) in the Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli Forest, Northeastern Greece // Raptor Res. 34(4): 293-298. – (En) /map/ (source – www.researchgate.net).

• J. Overpeck, C. Whitlock, B. Huntley, 2003 – Terrestrial biosphere dynamics in the climate system: past and future – (En). Fig. 5.13. Potential distribution of species under climate change scenarios in Europe – // Paleoclimate, Global Change and the Future: 220 pp.