Monitoring Results from the Breeding Group of Egyptian Vulture at Narat-Tyube Ridge and GPS/GSM Tracking Data from Juvenile Egyptian Vultures (Republic of Dagestan, Russia)

Abstract

This article represents a data obtained during observing a breeding group of Egyptian Vultures (Neophron percnopterus) and GPS-tracking of 4 juvenile birds from the breeding group located on the Narat-Tyube ridge, State Nature Reserve “Dagestanskiy”, Dagestan, Russia. The population number of this breeding group remains stable during the last 7 years. The density of breeding pairs is 7.2/100 sq.km. A distance between neighboring pairs vary from 1.9 km to 4.1 km, the mean value (n=9) is 3.05±0.69 km. Only one out of 4 juvenile birds tagged with GPS/GSM tracker finished its migration successfully and spent winter in Yemen. The signal from another one was lost on the territory without coverage area, another bird was caught in Iraq and its fate remains unknown, and the last one crashed into powerline wires in Saudi Arabia and was taken to the rehabilitation center. Our data showed that Dagestan Egyptian Vultures use same migration routes that were already known for Transcaucasian birds. According to our data obtained from sole juvenile bird wintering area of Egyptian Vultures from this population also coincides with previously known wintering areas of the species in Yemen. The migration distance from breeding to wintering site obtained in our study is 3299 km and the length of migration route is 4155 km; the duration of autumn migration is 31 days; the individual wintering area (95% MCP) is 2256 sq.km, Kernel 50% – 38 sq.km or 1.7% from 95% MCP.

Keywords

• пернатые хищники
• хищные птицы
• стервятник
• neophron percnopterus
• gps/gsm-телеметрия
• миграция
• дагестан