The miracle of the migration

25.10.2013

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September is the migration month of Egyptian Vultures and Turkey is the destination for their observation. Here is what we learned from Peter Yankov, a member of the international team, formed by RSPB, Doğa Derneği (BirdLife partner in Turkey) and BSPB:

We had to find a vantage point in northern part of Gulf of Iskenderun, to be used in the future to conduct annual monitoring and to track changes in the Egyptian vulture population inhabiting the Balkans and Western Turkey. Here, to the easternmost point of the Mediterranean, Egyptian Vultures equipped with satellite transmitters under the LIFE + project "The Return of the Neophron" had already outlined not only the "miracle" called migration corridor and the so called "bottleneck site migration".
The migration flows here near the Gulf of Iskenderun is very different. The species and their number differed from our expectations. Here they did not escape the sea - something very characteristic of the migration of raptors.

We found out that the mountains are not an obstacle to the soaring migrants. The mountain range Davur did not stop their flight and rather served to "lift" a honey-buzzards, eagles, hawks, Egyptian vultures and other migrants. At noon the migration doesn’t stop or decreases. The birds just fly so high (probably higher than 1.5-2 km) that it's just hard to see them.

Although only for a month, we have seen that there are places with very strong migratory corridors, places where birds often fly very low. The specific for this region large areas covered with black volcanic stones were visibly attractive places for soaring and elevation. We experienced a very unusual and very interesting migration - with Saker Falcons and Red-footed Falcon, Imperial and Greater Spotted Eagles... "

" ... For 383 hours of monitoring between August 29 and September 26 we identified 26 species of migratory raptors with 62,243 individuals, including 552 Egyptian Vultures.
Quite impressive were the quantities of migratory Levant Sparrowhawk (15,701) Short-toed Eagles (6257), Booted Eagles (1028).

Finally, we revealed that the migration to the northern Gulf of Iskenderun is very narrow front and the place is very suitable not only for monitoring point of the Egyptian vulture, but a new point of future "chain" of observation points for global monitoring of migration. In the context of this "chain" of particular importance will prove all these points, which are approximately the same latitude as will enable to cover most complete migration. Several "chains" arranged from north to south, along with a growing number of tagged birds will describe much better migratory routes and show much clearer picture of the miracle of migration. And most importantly - will allow us to judge the changes in the populations of many endangered species of birds of prey in this part of the world - something that every day will become increasingly necessary. "


Petar Yankov

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