The data collected will help to monitor the effects of climate change on the winter bird population over the coming decades.Continue reading
The Hungarian Ornithological and Nature Conservation Society (MME) has completed its annual census of birds of prey wintering in Hungary for the 22nd time.
The work, which has been done locally every January since 2003, is carried out in cooperation with national park directorates and other civil nature conservation organizations. Since 2018, the survey is being conducted with the involvement of experts from neighboring countries. With their help the 8th eagle census of the Pannonian region has been completed this year as well.
The winter “eagle map” of the Carpathian Basin was compiled by observing more than 2000 eagles and 250 falcons, a total of 18.486 birds of prey belonging to 17 species.
More than six hundred Hungarian, Slovak, Slovenian, Czech, Serbian and Romanian ornithologists surveyed almost all the significant eagle and falcon wintering grounds of the Carpathian Basin in the census, which was called “eagle synchrony”. They named it this way because of the simultaneous observations that provided the most accurate picture possible of the raptor species and their numbers.
White tailed eagles; Photo: Wikipedia
The observations in Hungary covered about 22,000 square kilometers, i.e. more than 20 percent of the country’s territory.
The surveys focused on the best eagle habitats, so a significant part of the national population was observed in terms of eagle species.
Participants recorded observations of four species of eagles: 988 (last year 1,102) of the white-tailed eagle, 732 (last year 790) of the eastern imperial eagle, three (last year eight) of the golden eagle and eight (last year eight) of the greater spotted eagle. The birders also paid special attention to the large, highly protected falcon species. They counted 85 (last year 71) of the saker falcon and 42 (last year 50) of the peregrine falcon.
In the six Central European countries that participated in the preparation of the Carpathian Basin eagle inventory, in 996 (ten by ten kilometer) sampling squares, 1,308 white-tailed eagles (last year 1,708), 879 eastern imperial eagles (last year 929), eight golden eagles (last year 16) and nine greater spotted eagles (last year ten) were observed. In total 18,486 (last year 21,973) specimens of seventeen species of raptors were recorded by the experts during the survey.
Via MTI; Featured picture: Pixabay