Circaetus gallicus information navigator

These fragments of Short-toed Eagles’ flights have been shot at their breeding territories and hunting grounds in Kiev Region /map/ and in Mizhrichynskyi Park /map/ this year. The video is commented on, please, pay attention on subtitles. You can see eagles A11, B11, K11 and L11 in the clip. Certainly, also other more melodious names were given them for routine use. These STEs occupy their breeding sites within the same home ranges from year to year since at least 2006 and 2010. For a regular observer every bird has obvious individual traits. The video without compression can be downloaded.

Francesco Petretti reports the findings of a long term study of the feeding ecology of two populations of Short-toed Eagle in Western Central Italy /map/: Maremma Regional Park /map/ and Tolfa hills. In both areas snakes represented the bulk of the diet, but there were significant differences in the selection of prey species with a higher number of “not-conventional prey species”, e.g. mammals and toads, in Maremma Regional Park and a stronger predation on Hierophis (Zamenis) viridiflavus in Tolfa hills. The study is in progress and will be implemented in 2014.

• Francesco Petretti, 2012 – Ecologia alimentare del Biancone (Circaetus gallicus) in due aree di studio in Italia Centrale [Feeding ecology of Short-toed Eagle in two study areas in Central Italy] – (It) – presentation, 20 pages.

The presentation is published on the Stazione Romana Osservazione e Protezione Uccelli (SROPU) website. It contains tables, diagrams and beautiful photos of Short-toed Eagles and snakes.

A new work of Dimitris E. Bakaloudis and Christos G. Vlachos on feeding of Short-toed Eagle in the Dadia-Lefkimi-Soufli National Park /map/ is published on the Journal of Biological Research website:

• Dimitrios E. Bakaloudis, Christos G. Vlachos, 2011 – Feeding habits and provisioning rate of breeding short-toed eagles Circaetus gallicus in northeastern Greece // Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki 16: 166 – 176. – (En).

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/.

These scenes of life in Short-toed Eagles’ nest were fixed by Bernard Joubert in Haute-Loire /map/ this year:

Area: southern Auvergne. Altitude: 870 m above sea level. Tree: pine Pinus sylvestris. Height: 6 meters.

The egg was laid near the 8^th of April, the hatching happened around the 24^th of May. The young bird took off the 30^th of July, early afternoon. He was 67 days old. It was the twelfth succesful take-off in this site in 14 years.
The first visit – very discreet-happened when the chick was 10 days old. Between the 21^th of June and the 30^th of July, nine observatory sessions (circa 30 hours). Here is a photografic summary.

Bernard Joubert

Part with aggregation: You can see here the special phenomenon in my study area /map/, where many Short-toed Eagles flying over one field (aggregation) that is being worked up by a tractor, waiting for the prey (mainly rodents!) to be exposed by the tractor so that they dive quickly on the prey.

Part with Short-toed eagle chasing a rodent: You can see here a Short-toed Eagle chasing a rodent (Gerbil) that has succeeded to get out of a ploughing, and after a relatively long pursuit the Eagle managed to get it.

Catching a rodent: here you can see another part where Short-toed Eagle gets a Field Vole in his talons (you can even hear the rodent screaming).