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Three young Short-toed Eagles were tagged with transmitters when they were yet in the nests in Hungary, Montenegro and Italy in 2019. The eagles now are 2cy immature birds, still being tracked and their migration behaviour is of great interest.

A juvenile Short-toed Eagle was released after a month spent in the Rehabilitation Centre «Вільні Крила» (Free Wings) at the vicinity of Lviv /map/ (Western Ukraine) at the end of September. For the last week, that eagle named Java has covered 330 km and reached Romania. The young short-toed tries to stick to areas potentially rich in snakes, such as numerous river floodplains. You can follow the eagle on the map of its migration which is daily updated. That bird had been contused about two weeks after leaving the nest. Viktor Shelvinskyi and Pavlo Kruchok provided the best conditions to recover young Short-toed Eagle as quickly as possible. An installation of the Ecotone GPS-GSM transmitter was provided by Andrew Simon as a part of the project on Greater Spotted and Short-toed Snake Eagles in Northern Ukraine launched this year.

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.

The following paper by Ivan Budinski established principles of the local Short-toed Eagle population monitoring program in Croatia:

• Ivan BUDINSKI, 2014 – Nacionalni program za monitoring zmijara (Circaetus gallicus) [National monitoring program for Short-toed Eagle] // Udruga BIOM. Zagreb: 10 p. – (Hr).

The author is one of Croatian researchers involved in the project of GPS tracking of Paško, the local young Short-toed Eagle. The map of the bird’s migratory movements is available online and regularly updated.

The first results of juvenile Short-toed Eagle tracking from the Telašćica Nature Park /map/ in Croatia are represented in the recent paper:

• Sven KAPELJ, Ivan BUDINSKI, Mate ZEC, Ivan KATANOVIĆ, Ivana ŠARIĆ, Iva ŠOŠTARIĆ, 2017 – The first results of GPS tracking of the Short-toed Eagle Circaetus gallicus in Croatia // Larus, Vol. 52, No. 1: pp. 65-67. – (En).

The PDF is available on the Portal of scientific journals of Croatia HRČAK.

Within the framework of the Turjánvidék LIFE project, which aims the preservation of habitats of such species as the endangered Hungarian Meadow Viper (Vipera ursinii rakosiensis), two Ecotone GPS-GSM trackers were bought in 2016. The main aim was to follow the life of a Short-toed Eagle pair residing close to and hunting regularly on viper habitats. Since the capture of the adult male failed in 2017, experts marked the offspring of this pair with the transmitter /map/. The chick was named Örs, an ancient Hungarian name meaning «human», «man» or «hero» but also a name of a Hungarian tribe from ancient times.

Örs left the natal area on October 1^st and its tracks can be followed on SATELLITETRACKING.EU.

The other transmitter was deployed on a repatriated individual in 2016, which died two months later in Poland. Its tracks are not available on the aforementioned website yet, however, another post will appear here if so.

Gábor Papp