December 2016

In early December the tagged vulture headed south.  It had spent about 45 days just south of Muscat, making visits to the Al Multaqa rubbish dump and often roosting in the steep canyons of Wadi Sareen Nature Reserve.  While heading south it seemed to check on the old rubbish dump at Quriyat.  That rubbish dump has been closed for some time.  Perhaps vultures remember places where they have found food before, and check them every so often to keep informed.  Vultures are scavengers and the distribution of their food is often not predictable, so it is good for them to keep tabs on food in the areas over which they forage.  After leaving Quriyat, it travelled south to Ibra, another place where it has foraged extensively.  It then moved on to Tahwa, the rubbish dump that serves Sur, and it has been there for the last 10 days.

Egyptian vulture movements 1-26 December 2016.

In January, under permission from MECA, we will be working with ESO to fit more transmitters to vultures.  I'll try to keep the blog current, but January looks busy.

Early December 2016

Since we began tracking this bird 11 months ago we have received almost 3900 locations.  In the last two weeks, it has moved from the area around Al Multaqa rubbish dump, and made its way south, with stopovers in Quriyat and near Tiwi.  It then crossed the mountains to the south, and is currently near the village of Tawa, and not far from the rubbish dump that serves Sur.  This is all fascinating stuff, and we hope to continue tracking this bird for some time.

Movements of Egyptian vulture during 26 Nov-9Dec 2016.

Also, recently very large numbers of Egyptian vultures were seen at Al Multaqa rubbish dump, as reported by Jens and Hanne Eriksen.  Scroll down to the 24 November entry on this Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/vultureconservationfoundation/?fref=ts

Finally, in November a conference was held in Budapest, Hungary about birds and power lines.  We know that some Egyptian vultures in Oman get electrocuted (See post 21 December 2015).  This is a problem in many countries.  In Hungary and other countries the electricity companies are working with conservationists to address the problems because solutions benefit everyone: electricity customers, electricity company, and birds.  You can download the presentations from that conference at this site:  http://www.mavir.hu/web/mavir-en/birds-and-powerlines.