by M. McGrady and B.-U. Meyburg
It's been about 1.5 months since we last posted anything about the vultures we are tracking. During that time most of the vultures have been spending time on their territories, making regular visits to the Al Multaquaa dump, and only occassionally wandering more widely. Although we do not have information on productivity from the vultures, judging from the tracking data, it seems that some birds actually raised some offspring. It certainly would be nice in future years to confirm this, and start to understand how productive the breeding population of Egyptian vultures in Oman really is.
The map below is typical of what the territorial birds have been doing. The map is of the last 500 locations for vulture number 171325. It has a territory inland from Yiti and As Sifah. It makes regular trips to the landfill at Al Multaquaa, but also made a long trip to the rubbish dump outside of Ibra. This behaviour is actually in line with what we found for non-breeding immature (McGrady et al. 2017) birds in that this vulture makes regular visits to a source of abundant food, but also seems to keep tabs on more distant food sources. This type of behaviour provides a hedge against the loss of the nearby source. Of course the Egyptian vulture has no way of knowing that the Al Multaquaa landfill is likely to be a reliable source of abundant food for a long time.
GOOD NEWS FROM PORTUGAL: A national action plan for necrophagus birds has been published https://www.4vultures.org/2019/08/22/portuguese-action-plan-for-the-conservation-of-necrophagous-birds-finally-published-in-di%C3%A1rio-da-rep%C3%BAblica/?fbclid=IwAR1TiPg3U2AR5Y-v434Cmz3X8ifbavXqICCEcHiZzDWmLyjsoYmnD5JyW38
The map below is typical of what the territorial birds have been doing. The map is of the last 500 locations for vulture number 171325. It has a territory inland from Yiti and As Sifah. It makes regular trips to the landfill at Al Multaquaa, but also made a long trip to the rubbish dump outside of Ibra. This behaviour is actually in line with what we found for non-breeding immature (McGrady et al. 2017) birds in that this vulture makes regular visits to a source of abundant food, but also seems to keep tabs on more distant food sources. This type of behaviour provides a hedge against the loss of the nearby source. Of course the Egyptian vulture has no way of knowing that the Al Multaquaa landfill is likely to be a reliable source of abundant food for a long time.
McGrady M.J., Karelus, D.L., Rayaleh,
H.A., Sarrouf Willson, M., Meyburg, B.-U., Oli, M.K., Bildstein, K. 2019. Home range and movement of Egyptian Vultures
in relation to rubbish dumps in Oman and the Horn of Africa. Bird
Study 65: 544–556.
GOOD NEWS FROM PORTUGAL: A national action plan for necrophagus birds has been published https://www.4vultures.org/2019/08/22/portuguese-action-plan-for-the-conservation-of-necrophagous-birds-finally-published-in-di%C3%A1rio-da-rep%C3%BAblica/?fbclid=IwAR1TiPg3U2AR5Y-v434Cmz3X8ifbavXqICCEcHiZzDWmLyjsoYmnD5JyW38
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| Last 500 locations from an adult Egyptian vulture (171325) up to 28 August 2019. |
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