Thanks Mohamed - very interesting
Hope you don't mind - this link should go straight to the article :t:
http://www.magornitho.org/2017/12/spanish-imperial-eagle-migration-2017/
You can post the link as you like! I didn't include it because I thought that the photos are the only additional information in the link and are not central for the news about this known species.Thanks Mohamed - very interesting
Hope you don't mind - this link should go straight to the article :t:
http://www.magornitho.org/2017/12/spanish-imperial-eagle-migration-2017/
Yes there are more records of Y-b W than in previous years, but still I think the species is under recorded (given the numbers seen in Western Europe).Likewise Mohamed, a very interesting article, also the links to increased incidence of Yellow-browsed Warbler overwintering in the region. :t:
You are welcome!
You can post the link as you like! I didn't include it because I thought that the photos are the only additional information in the link and are not central for the news about this known species.
Yes there are more records of Y-b W than in previous years, but still I think the species is under recorded (given the numbers seen in Western Europe).
The same for the Olive-backed Pipit, there should have been more records here as well (Only 4 birds this autumn and all at Rabat by the same observer. But at least, in this case the species needs some efforts to differentiate it from other pipits).
Note: the Saker Falcon is rare in Morocco; this bird is only the fifth record. Although some birds, especially in light phase, may have gone unnoticed because they can easily be confused with Lanner Falcons.
Yes it makes one wonder doesn't it... there was the wild Hungarian bird which was satellite tracked through western Europe and north west Africa to its wintering area at Banc D'Arguin... was this really exceptional?..
Probably the largest roosting of Black Kites recorded on migration through this flyway.
Watch until the end of the video to see the actual roosts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p074MgiDoNc
Next day, 3 March 2020, over 10,000 have passed just over Gibraltar (see, e.g.: https://twitter.com/gonhsgib/status/1234934220436463622).
I was South of the High Atlas and it was noticeable that there was no migration in the last ten days of February. The first early signs were on 28/29th February.
It is likely to guess that the sandstorm that impacted the Canaries cut off the northerly movement of species and now, like a cork out of a bottle, they are chasing north again.
We did see a couple of Spoonbills that were so badly abraded that they could hardly fly. It is good to know that at least one species waited.
The Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti) disappeared from Africa as a breeding species in the 1960s coincident with a general decline of their populations in the Iberian Peninsula. Because of a combination of successful conservation actions and a general change in human attitudes, the Spanish Imperial Eagle population has been increasing in Iberia from 103 pairs in 1980 to more than 500 breeding pairs in 2018. As a consequence, the number of juveniles that cross the Strait of Gibraltar into Africa has increased recently. Abundance and distribution of potential prey should affect young eagles’ behaviour and could be a limiting factor for a potential re-colonization of previous North-African populations. Additionally, determination of temporary settlement areas is crucial from a conservation point of view. Conservation actions in these areas, particularly reduction of juvenile mortality, are a priority to facilitate future reestablishment of breeding populations of the species in North Africa. Here we report on the dispersal movements of juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagles marked with GPS-GSM transmitters in Andalusia (southern Spain), some of which crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into north-western Africa, an area that does not have populations of the eagle’s main prey, the European rabbit. We analysed the differences in dispersal patterns and temporary settlement behaviour in the two study areas. We found that dispersal movements were greater, temporary settlement areas were larger, and individuals stayed longer in areas and moved greater distances among them in Africa than in Iberia. We believe that our results are best explained by applying the Marginal Value Theorem, which predicts that individuals will leave a foraging area when the availability of prey drops to similar levels of those of the surrounding environment. We suggest that the increase in the records of the species in Africa could lead to a recolonization of the species in Africa based on birds coming from the “source” Iberian population, but only if the Iberian population continues to increase. We recommend that conservation measures must be established in these temporary settlement areas in Africa.