Circaetus gallicus information navigator

These amazing pictures and text were published in the latest La Plume du Circaète. Few of them were included in the previous galleries of Bernard Joubert on our site. Then, several new photos taken in March 2016 have been added and described by the author. Many thanks to him for sharing the pictures and especially for detailed comments on them, also to Ferenc and Gábor Papp for their kind help in the translation!

Here is the next annual gallery of pictures taken in Kiev, Chernihiv and Sumy Regions of Northern Ukraine in 2016. Short-toed Eagles of local pairs monitored during more than 10 years are captured in them. All the birds are indicated in captions by a letter and a year of the first representation in photo galleries on our site, starting with A11 – the old, very striped and dark-spotted, rather small but aggressive female living in the Mizhrichynskyi Nature Park /map/.

This video is a compilation of various short parts of the filming done in Northern Ukraine during the last year’s season from spring to fall. The shown moments of Short-toed Eagles’ life are provided with explanatory subtitles. The second part of the annual photo gallery contains descriptions of behaviour and habits of local STEs as well. Please see them under each presented picture.

The articles about Short-toed Eagles in present southwestern /map/ and southeastern /map/ Poland are divided by about 80 years. Four of them, written by Viktor Zebe /map/ and published in the first half of the 20^th century, have been placed on the Ptaki Śląska – Birds of Silesia website (De):

The next paper by Adam Flis is available on a website of the Institute of Nature Conservation PAS:

• Adam FLIS, 2013 – Występowanie gadożera Circaetus gallicus w Lasach Janowskich i Lipskich [The occurrence of Short-toed Eagle in Janowskie and Lipskie Forests (SE Poland)] // Chrońmy Przyrodę Ojczystą, 69 (3): pp. 221–225. – (Pl).

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.

The interview has been published on the European Raptors website yet on March 12. This, already the forth one dedicated to Short-toed Eagle on the site, was taken by Markus Jais on February 20. This time Gregorio Moreno-Rueda shares his knowledge about the feeding ecology of Short-toed Eagles in Spain, their threats, why they lay only one egg and how the future looks like for those impressive raptors in that impressive country.

The following text is available now on the Spanish Herpetological Society website:

• A. Acuña Rodríquez, F. Martinez-Freiría, G. Velo-Antón, 2013 – Ingesta de tres especies de herpetos (Bufo calamita, Anguis fragilis, Vipera seoanei) por un ejemplar de águila culebrera (Circaetus gallicus) abatido en un parque eólico [Three species are found in a Short-toed Eagle killed by wind farm] // Boletín de la Asociación Herpetológica Española, vol. 24(1): Pre-publication, ms685. – (Es) /map/.