Tawny Eagle / Spanish Imperial Eagle (Morocco) (1 Viewer)

Sorry this is not an ID request per se, but a request of a page published in Birding World 19: 496 about a bird seen in Morocco in December 2006 and thought to be a Tawny Eagle. A bird, later considered the same, was seen in February 2007 and was identified as second-year Spanish Imperial Eagle. (Because of the later observation or independently from it, the ID of the first bird was corrected). Both observations were accepted as Aquila adalberti (as one bird seen again) by the MRBC.

Last month, 3 Spanish Imperial Eagles and 6 resident eagles were found electrocuted in southern Morocco. The full report about these electrocutions is available here: http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1613292

And on 7 November, my friend Ali Irizi (who also carried out the main work in October) returned to the region and photographed a Spanish Imperial Eagle, alive this time!

Of course the impact of these electrocutions on the eagles (especially the Spanish Imperial Eagle because it's still Vulnerable, and the Bonelli's Eagle because of the high numbers wintering there) worried most of us.

But from the other angle (birding, ID), following these observations the question of ‘who is who’ is resurrected again among the Moroccan birding community (yes, there is a small but active birding community in Morocco). So, I would be thankful if someone can scan the mentioned page, or direct me to any photos of the December bird, if there are any on the Internet. Photos of the February bird are in the MRBC report (note that the legend of the photos says "16 décembre 2006" but it was only a mistake, they were from February 2007)

Acrocephalus said:

Sorry this is not an ID request per se, but a request of a page published in Birding World 19: 496 about a bird seen in Morocco in December 2006 and thought to be a Tawny Eagle.

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Mohamed,

BW 2006. Western Palearctic News. Birding World 19(12): 492–496.

MOROCCO December [2006] records included a Tawny Eagle 11km west of Tan-Tan on 16th, ...

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van den Berg & Haas 2007. WP reports. Dutch Birding 29(1): 43–58.

An Aquila eagle 11km west of Tantan, Draa, Morocco, on 16 December [2006] may have been a Tawny Eagle A rapax belisarius or, perhaps, a Spanish Imperial Eagle A adalberti.

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van den Berg 2007. WP reports. Dutch Birding 29(3): 168–183.

A juvenile Spanish Imperial Eagle A adalberti was photographed west of Tan Tan, southern Morocco, in December 2006 and again in February [2007] (recently, several were satellite-tracked in Spain and appeared to disperse as far south as Senegal).

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Thanks Richard. I see that it was suspected to be a Spanish Imperial Eagle already in the first mention in Dutch Birding.

Acrocephalus said:

I can’t add much to what already said by Maffong about the Dark Chanting Goshawk. I can only add that finding a vagrant from sub-Saharan Africa in the traditional area of the Moroccan subspecies is very unlikely. Though, it’s possible to find a vagrant further south in the Sahara (recorded in the WP part of Mauritania).

The same for the Tawny Eagle. I can only add that the situation in Algeria and Morocco is apparently similar: no recent records in both countries.

We know now that an increasing numbers of Spanish Imperial Eagles migrate to Africa each year (the majority visit mainly Morocco but some also visit Algeria and reach as far south as Senegal River). Given the difficulty in differentiating between the Spanish Imperial (immature birds) and the Tawny eagles, any record of the later species should be well documented. As you may be aware, some old records of Tawny Eagle are reassessed by the Moroccan Rare Birds Committee exactly for this reason.

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Now that the MRBC reviewed some of these old records of Tawny Eagle, I wrote this piece about the status of the species in Morocco.

In the blog, I added also a small paragraph about the likelihood of vagrancy from sub-Saharan Africa by citing some observations from northern Mauritania (inside the WP). I illustrated the blog by a photo taken there.

To make the matter a little bit more complex, when I shared the link today in facebook, Tom Conzemius commented that the small beak and tail are perfect for a Wahlberg's Eagle (if you are comfortable with facebook, the comment can be seen even without log-in)