Weather-influenced water-crossing behaviour of black kites ( Milvus migrans ) during migration
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Weather-influenced water-crossing behaviour of black kites (Milvus migrans) during migration Ivan Literák 1 & Simona Ovčiariková 1 & Jan Škrábal 1 & Hynek Matušík 2 & Rainer Raab 3 & Péter Spakovszky 3 & Maxim Vysochin 4 & Enikő Anna Tamás 5,6 & Béla Kalocsa 6 Received: 2 July 2020 / Accepted: 26 October 2020 # Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2020
Abstract From 2014 to 2020, 32 black kites from various European countries were tagged with telemetry devices and tracked to study their spatiotemporal behaviour. Eleven birds which crossed the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea directly over large water bodies out of traditional migration routes over the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles/the Bosporus area and the east coast of the Black Sea were selected for this study. Ten birds attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea and one attempted to cross the Black Sea. All black kites crossed the sea successfully but in one case the bird failed. The maximum water crossing length was recorded at 542 km. The average speed of the birds crossing the sea included a broad range from 27.7 to 97 kph. There was a correlation between average speed and tail-wind speed during the crossing. We conclude that the most favourable conditions for black kites when crossing large water bodies such as the Mediterranean and Black seas were sunny to partly cloudy weather with temperatures over 20 °C, the speed of the tailwind of 1.1–10.8 m/s and the air pressure over the standard value of 1013 hPa. Keywords Raptors . Telemetry . Migration . Milvus migrans
Introduction Black kites of the nominal subspecies Milvus migrans migrans (Boddaert, 1783) (hereafter ‘black kites‘ are only birds of this nominal subspecies) breed in the Western Palearctic and Central Asia (Ferguson-Lees and Christie
2001). The European population is estimated at 162,000– 218,000 mature individuals (BirdLife International 2015). Circannual variations including the migration of black kites have been extensively reviewed and it is known that black kites are summer residents in Europe and winter mostly in sub-Saharan Africa with a few remaining to winter in the
* Ivan Literák [email protected] Simona Ovčiariková [email protected]
Béla Kalocsa [email protected] 1
Department of Biology and Wildlife Diseases, Faculty of Veterinary Hygiene and Ecology, University of Veterinary and Pharmaceutical Sciences Brno, Palackého tř. 1946/1, 61242 Brno, Czech Republic
2
Březolupy, Czech Republic
3
Technisches Büro für Biologie Mag. Dr. Rainer Raab, Quadenstrasse 13, 2232 Deutsch-Wagram, Austria
4
Administration of the Dvorichanskiy National Park, Slobozhanska Street 5, Dvorichnaya, Ukraine
5
Faculty of Water Sciences, University of Public Service, Bajcsy-Zs. Utca 12-14, 6500 Baja, Hungary
6
Magyar Madártani és Természetvédelmi Egyesület (MME), BirdLife Partner, Kolto, 1121 Budapest, Hungary
Jan Škrábal [email protected] Hynek Matušík [email protected] Rainer Raab [email protected] Péter Spakovszky [email protected] Maxim
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