Scavenging birds as important waste managers

 Click on the link to see a recent opinion paper by M. McGrady, T. Al Amri, and A. Spalton

https://www.natureasia.com/en/nmiddleeast/article/10.1038/nmiddleeast.2019.80​

Endangered teppe eagles at the rubbish dump in Salalah, Oman, 2019

All tracked birds are in Kazakhstan

by B.-U. Meyburg, F. Al Lamki, A. Spalton and M. McGrady

All the Steppe eagles we fitted with transmitters in Salalah are in Kazakhstan, mostly in the west of that country.  The bird that is farthest east (162312), is the bird we first caught in 2017 at the Muscat municipal landfill.  That bird has spent the last two winters at a dumpsite in central Saudi Arabia (have a look back at earlier posts to see more).  It is now at 65.2 degrees east longitude, and is east of Astana.  About half the birds seem to have settled into summer home ranges, and may be breeding.  The others are becoming more settled, but it is not yet clear that they have stopped moving.  Hopefully our colleagues working in Kazakhstan might be able to visit some of these places to see if they can confirm breeding.

Locations of Steppe eagles fitted with transmitters in Oman as of 20 May 2019.

Steppe eagles are settling in for the summer

by B. Meyburg, F. Al Lamki, A. Spalton and M. McGrady

Most of the tagged Steppe eagles have made it to breeding areas in Central Asia.  All that have settled into apparent home ranges are in Kazakhstan.  At least one seems to be still migrating, and two have not been heard from since late March.  Those two may just be in a hole in the GSM coverage.  We'll have to wait and see.

Below is a map of all the movements of a Steppe eagle we marked in January 2017.  It was caught at the Muscat Municipal Landfill at Al Multaquaa. It migrated and spent the summer of 2017 in western Kazakhstan.  In that summer it did not seem to breed, and we would not expect it to have bred  because it was a young bird.  In winter 2017-18 it was at a rubbish dump NW of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  In summer 2018 it settled into a home range about 100 km SW of Arkalyk, Kazakhsatan.  In winter 2018-19 it returned to the rubbish dump in Saudi, and this summer it has settled at the same place as summer 2018.

We'll update the blog soon when we have more conclusive data on the location of summer ranges.  Our colleagues working in Central Asia can then, perhaps, try to locate some of these sites.

Movements of a Steppe eagle, first captured in January 2017 near Muscat, Oman.