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Blog posts after 1 Feb 2018 about Steppe eagles tracked from Oman can be found at the Steppe eagle blog

Friday, July 17, 2020

171329 during early summer 2020

by B.-U. Meyburg and M. McGrady

We are still tracking a few Egyptian vultures that we fitted with satellite transmitters back in January 2018.  All, except one, stayed in Oman, and most seemed to be breeders.  The one that moved, just hopped across to Iran and settled there (but was recently electrocuted).  See past posts.

Below is an interesting map from 171329, which illustrates some common features we are seeing in vulture ranging behaviour.  In this map you can see that this bird moves mostly between Wadi Sareen (where it might breed and roost), and locations near Bidbid and at the Muscat landfill at Al Multaqaa (click on the map and it should open in a seperate tab).  However, it also makes exursions to Al Hayema and even to Al Mudaybi (almost 80 km away as the vulture flies).  Interestingly, at Al Mudaybi it visited a waste disposal site.  These movements are consistent with our supposition that the vultures sometimes venture to distant locations, perhaps to keep up to date on information about food availability.

Movements of an Egyptian vulture during early summer 2020.

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