Steppe eagles in Dhofar

by Andrew Spalton, Mike McGrady, Faisal Al Lamki and Bernd Meyburg

We just wanted to get some initial maps out...

Over the last two weeks we have fitted satellite transmitters to 13 Steppe eagles wintering in Dhofar, Oman.  We caught the eagles at the old rubbish dump at Raysut.  Below is a zoomed out map of the tracks of 11 of the eagles.  Most of them have stayed south of the escarpment in the plain around Salalah.  At night most appear to roost at the escarpment, either in trees or on the many cliffs.  Most also continue to visit the rubbish dump (zoomed in map below).  Some few have made excursions to eastern Yemen, and returned, and shorter flights along the coast to the west.  Others have headed north a bit, some apparently around a chicken farm there.  Now it is just a matter of watching what happens.  It's hard to tell, but there are over 5000 GPS locations in the upper map

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Tracks during January 2019 of 11 Steppe eagles fitted with satellite transmitters at the rubbish dump at Raysut, Oman, 

Zoomed in image showing that tagged eagles spent a lot of time visiting the rubbish dump in January..