African Raptors

Raptor research in the Ebo forest took an important step forward in 2011 on receiving funding from The Peregrine Fund, as well as the Raptor Research Foundation’s Leslie Brown Memorial Award and the British Ecological Society’s Small Ecological Project Grant scheme.  These funds are being used to survey hunter’s camps in the Ebo forest, searching for the remains of raptors and other birds. Data will be used to assess the scale of hunting raptors for food and to try and develop indirect measurements of hunting pressure.  The project was initiated in June 2011 and we hope to have completed data collection by March 2012.

A Crowned Eagle attending a chick

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Immature Short-toed Eagle

Mellone, U., Yáñez, B., Limiñana, R., Muñoz, A.R., Pavón, D., González, J.M.,
Urios, V. & Ferrer, M. 2011 Summer staging areas of non-breeding Short-toed
Snake Eagles. Bird Study DOI:10.1080/00063657.2011.598914

The importance of the non-breeding fraction of raptor populations for conservation is well recognized, but little is known on the behaviour of these “ghost” birds, especially in migratory species. The Short-toed snake Eagle Circaetus gallicus is a migratory raptor that breeds in Europe and northern Africa, spending the winter in sub-Saharan Africa. Through satellite telemetry, a group of researchers led by the Estación Biológica Terra Natura (University of Alicante) and by the Fundación Migres recorded data of seven summering events belonging to six individuals hatched in Spain. Immature Short-toed Eagles left their wintering Sahelian grounds by mid-April, and after crossing the Sahara desert, the birds settled in Morocco and Algeria, thus not returning to Europe in their second nor third summer, and [Read more →]

A Seychelles Kestrel on a nest. Photo by Jeff Watson

Katiti in Creole, crashed to approximately eight individuals since the 1940s before the population recovered, apparently unassisted, a genetics study published in the October 2009 Biological Conservation Journal has revealed. This crash, it is thought, approached the severity of the genetic bottleneck of the Mauritius Kestrel whose numbers reduced to only four known individuals in the wild in the early 1970s. Intriguing however, is that the Seychelles Kestrel seems to have recovered undetected and without intensive intervention. Methods to measure levels of genetic diversity in ancestors have improved to allow pinpointing of major changes in a population’s history. Using genetic data from 100-150 year-old museum specimen, and comparing this with data from current populations, the study established that at one point the population crashed. And then with very little conservation effort it recovered. Nirmal Shah, Chief Executive of Nature Seychelles, was part of the study led by Kent and Sheffield Universities in the UK. A clear understanding of the recent population history of a species is important because it helps managers to anticipate problems associated with a dip in population. Island endemic bird populations generally have lower levels of genetic diversity than species with a [Read more →]

A survey of Ethiopian vultures, which lasted for eleven days, was carried out from 28th January to 7th February 2010. The area covered encompassed a maximum radius of 200 km around the Capital, Addis Ababa. Road counts were used to count flying as well as perched vultures. Roost counts were performed only if they were on the transect. All birds of prey were recorded on this survey. [Read more →]