GPS-tagged Greater Spotted Eagle at Batumi
The GPS-tagged juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle that was seen from Station 1. Photos by Marc Heetkamp.
On October 1st a juvenile Greater Spotted Eagle carrying a GPS tracker was seen passing Station 1. As this is not the first time a tagged bird has passed our stations in recent years, we set out to find the researcher who may have tagged it. Thanks to a volunteer who knew who to contact, we came in touch with Dr. Alexander Mischenko, coordinator of the GSE conservation and tagging project by the NGO BirdsRussia, who kindly supplied us with more information regarding the bird. This particular GSE is named Pyatnitsa (meaning Friday in Russian) and was equipped with a “Druid” tracker as a nestling on the 21st of July in the Moscow region. Like another tagged GSE in 2019, Pyatnitsa is now spending its first winter in Egypt.
The first BRC publication in Russian Raptors Conservation journal with on the frontpage a stunning juvenile Short-toed Eagle giving onlookers in the Batumi bottleneck a close look.
The observation of this Russian-tagged individual nicely fits the idea that most spotted eagles that pass through Batumi originate from the European part of Russia, as we postulated in a recent article in the Russian journal ‘Raptors Conservation’ (Zaytseva et al. 2022). Indeed, Greater Spotted Eagles tracked from Ukraine and Belarus seem to consistently migrate along the western coast of the Black Sea. As more and more tracking studies are being conducted in the East African-Eurasian Flyway, it is slowly but surely becoming possible to identify the source breeding areas of raptors passing through Batumi. Crucial information to link the trends we observe in our counts to environmental changes at the breeding grounds!
Additionally, on October 15th, we suspect to have seen another tagged bird this season; a White-tailed Eagle. Unfortunately, the bird flew too far away to confirm it was carrying a transmitter. Nonetheless, according to a social media post by Ohad Hatzofe of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority which shows the (quite remarkable) route of this bird, the day and moment of passing seem to coincide with the tracks shown, plus we only get a handful of White-tailed Eagles each season in Batumi. However, we are still awaiting confirmation that the observed bird was indeed the tagged individual.
While it often remains surprisingly difficult to pick out ringed or tagged birds on migration, our list of species has grown in the past years, including Imperial Eagles, Lesser Spotted Eagles, Black Kites, and Black Storks. Let’s see which species will be added to this list during the upcoming seasons!