Bird Notes columnist Julian
Hughes of RSPB Conwy reveals what birds have been spotted in the past week
Andrew
ForgraveRural Affairs Editor
18:14, 7 MAY 2018
I’ve been in Cyprus for the last
week, and one of the highlights is seeing the Montagu’s Harriers, freshly
arrived from their winter quarters south of the Sahara Desert.
These long-winged, elegant
raptors sweep over the grasslands hunting for large insects and small rodents.
But even the afternoons in the
eastern Mediterranean can be a bit much for a top predator; I came across a
female sitting beneath the shade of a tree, and she was not for moving.
Social media was used to solve a
mystery for researchers at the weekend, when the satellite transmitter attached
to a Montagu’s Harrier showed it has stalled around some buildings in Algeria.
James, as he was named, was given
the transmitter when he was caught near his nest in south west England last
July. He subsequently spent the winter in northern Mali.
An appeal for help on Twitter
brought a response from ornithologists in Algeria, who travelled to the area
and found James’s body with the transmitter still working.
Without being able to trigger an
immediate ground search, we would probably never really have known what
happened to him.
Several other tagged Monties have
yet to return to Britain, being scattered between Spain and West Africa.
No comments:
Post a Comment