New tracking initiative starting in 2020

by M. McGrady and H. Rayaleh

Mabla (216) being released by Houssein

This blog post marks the re-activation of  the Egyptian vultures in Djibouti blog, after a pause of over a year.  During 10-22 February 2020 we did field work in Djibouti on Egyptian vultures that followed up on our work in 2013.  In 2013, we fitted a single sub-adult Egyptian vulture (Assamo) with a GPS-PTT (satellite transmitter), and tracked it for about 18 months.  During that time, it moved between two centres of activity, one north of Tajoura, Djibouti and one near Adigala, Ethiopia.  We never got to the bottom of why that bird made such long journeys between those centres, but we did write a paper that used those data and data from Oman http://egyptianvultureoman.blogspot.com/ to examine the movements of non-breeding Egyptian vultures.  You can download that paper from the 24 Jan 2014 blog post https://egyptianvulturedjibouti.blogspot.com/2019/01/new-publication-using-data-from-assamo.html.

Anyway… during our 2020 field work we fitted 7 adult Egyptian vultures with satellite transmitters. In the coming weeks/months/years we will be posting updates about these birds every so often.  So as to get started, below is a map of the movements of Mabla (pictured above) since it was tagged on 16 February.  Unlike the others that we tagged, Mabla does not appear to be a territory holder, but has wandered over to near Semera, Ethiopia.  

Please follow this blog to keep up to date, and let others know about it.  We'll be posting more soon.

Movements of Mabla, an adult Egyptian vulture during 16 February - 8 March 2020