Circaetus gallicus information navigator

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/.

Many thanks to Luca Baghino for sharing this fresh article dedicated to ongoing studies of Short-toed Eagle migration from regions of Europe:

• Nicolantonio AGOSTINI, Luca BAGHINO, Wouter M. G. VANSTEELANT & Michele PANUCCIO, 2016 – Age-related timing of Short-toed Snake Eagle Circaetus gallicus migration along detoured and direct flyways // Bird Study, DOI: 10.1080 / 00063657.2016.1264362. – (En).

The paper is available on the ResearchGate and Medraptors websites.

This bird had been photographed by Javier G. in Peñaflor (the environments of Zaragoza city, Spain) /map/ in August 2013. Thanks to the author and to Javier Blasco-Zumeta we have the following information about that unique record of leucism in Short-toed Snake Eagle:

That absolutely white bird was born in a forest of Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis), successfully left the nest, was observed in its territory until the end of September, and when it was time to start the migration the juvenile Short-toed Eagle flew away.

If the bird has survived, its return to Europe may be expected next year, after 2 years of probable wintering and summering in Africa.

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 following paper was already mentioned on HoverOverUs. Now the PDF of it is available on the Seaturtle.org website:

• Pavón D., Limiñana R., Urios V., Izquierdo A., Yáñez B., Ferrer M. & de la Vega A., 2010 – Autumn migration of juvenile Short-toed Eagles Circaetus gallicus from southeastern Spain // Ardea, 98 (1). P. 113–117. – (En) /map/.

A new paper on the circuitous migration of Short-toed Eagles from southern Italy /map/ to Africa has been published:

• Mellone U., Limiñana R., Mallìa E. & Urios V., 2011 – Extremely detoured migration in an inexperienced bird: interplay of transport costs and social interactions // Journal of Avian Biology 42: 468-472. – (En).

The PDF can be found on Ugo Mellone’s website.

This paper is available now on a section of Publications in scientific journals of the University of Granada website:

• Gil-Sánchez J.M., Pleguezuelos J.M., 2001 – Prey and prey-size selection by the Short-toed eagle (Circaetus gallicus) during the breeding season in Granada (south-eastern Spain) // Journal of Zoology (Lond.), 255 (1): 131-137. – (En) /map/.

…and an abstract of next one is placed on a website of Ardea – the official scientific journal of the Netherlands Ornithologists’ Union:

• Pavón D., Limiñana R., Urios V., Izquierdo A., Yáñez B., Ferrer M. & de la Vega A., 2010 – Autumn migration of juvenile Short-toed Eagles Circaetus gallicus from southeastern Spain // Ardea, 98 (1). P. 113–117. (En) /map/.