Il-Merill 34 2020

Il-Merill 34 2020

First confirmed record of Eastern Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca (Savigny, 1809) in Malta

Edward Bonavia

Whilst monitoring raptors at Buskett at 14.50 CET on 3 November 2015, the author spotted a large Aquila sp. over Żebbuġ heading towards the Buskett observation post. After focussing a telescope on the bird, the author was surprised that it was not a Lesser Spotted Eagle Clanga pomarina but was either a juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle Aquila heliaca or juvenile Steppe Eagle Aquila nipalensis due to size and general colouration. Furthermore, its upperparts had broad and uniform pale tips to greater coverts and a continuous white trailing edge to wing and tail. It then started soaring which presented its underparts, eliminating Steppe Eagle as all typical features of a juvenile Eastern Imperial Eagle were noted. These features included the streaked breast collar separating the pale head from the pale rear body, uniform pale underwing coverts (unlike in Steppe which has a broad white band) giving the bird a two-toned appearance to darker flight feathers and a pale window on the inner hand. Again the white trailing edge to wing and tail was also visible. At that moment the author contacted other birdwatchers to come to Buskett to observe this bird.

Apart from the above mentioned features, the author also noted the short tail, and the arched wings with a conspicuous broom to their tip.

The bird then flew towards Fawwara where it was lost behind a ridge at 15.05. The author then contacted local birdwatcher Stephen Cilia to direct him to a spot in Fawwara where he assumed the bird might have gone. At 15.45, the author re-sighted the bird again, over Fawwara where it had been seen last, this time together with local birders Raymond Galea and Charles Coleiro. The

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bird was lost again behind the ridge after a couple of minutes, however Stephen Cilia was at the right spot at Fawwara and managed to take a number of good photographs of the bird. He also confirmed that the bird was carrying a GPS-GSM satellite tag.

Following email correspondence and studying the photos of the satellite tag, it was concluded that the bird was from Austria. Further confirmation was obtained a week later when the mobile phone company confirmed that this bird’s satellite tracker had sent the last two location messages via an operator from Malta. The previous day the tag had lost its connection to a mobile network provider about 100km south of the Peloponnese off the southern coast of Greece. It was at the time heading S/SSW and erroneously ended up in Malta the following day with the prevailing easterly wind. This bird, named “NPDA2”, hatched around 3 May 2015 in the National Park Donau-Auen in the east of Vienna and was tagged in the nest (together with another chick) on 25 June. The main goal of this particular project was to inform the ongoing planning and development of windfarms in Austria on the habitat use of this species to mitigate any conflicts between this species and wind farms. The project was financed by a group of wind farm companies.

In addition, there is still the threat of illegal persecution of Eastern Imperial Eagles in Austria and the neighbouring countries, and therefore these trackers provide an important tool for monitoring the extent of this threat. For this particular eagle, it would appear that this was the case; after Stephen Cilia lost sight of the bird, six shots were heard shortly after.

Eastern Imperial Eagles breed in a wide zone from Austria, Slovakia and Hungary in the west through southern Russia to Lake Baikal and N. Pakistan in the east (Forsman 1999). They are a partly migratory species, with adults wintering close to their breeding grounds, also within Europe. Juveniles and subadults, but also some adults of the European population, migrate along the Eastern Mediterranean Flyway to wintering quarters in the Middle East and North Africa. Autumn migration in the Middle East peaks in late October to early November (BirdLife International, 2019) and the occurrence of the bird in Malta falls into this period.

Although Schembri never saw an Eastern Imperial Eagle in Malta, he was informed by Dr. Grech Delicata that he had observed one in October 1842. Gulia (1858–1863) was assured that it was observed many times in Gozo, while Giglioli (1886) and Arrigoni degli Oddi (1929) doubted its occurrence in Malta, suspecting that observations might refer to Golden Eagle Aquila chrysaetos. Sultana et al. (1975; 1982) thus concluded that ‘in view of the lack of supporting evidence this

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species should be rejected.’ Taking this into account, the observation at hand constitutes the first confirmed record of the species in Malta, and the Malta Rarities and Records Committee accepted the record on 2 February 2016.

The Maltese name is Ajkla Imperjali given by Despott in his Notes on the Ornithology of Malta (1917).

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Nicholas Barbara from BirdLife Malta, Matthias Schmidt from BirdLife Austria and András Kovács from the Imperial Eagle Foundation for their assistance in finding the origin and history of this bird.

I would also like to thank Stephen Cilia, who was able to provide the photographic evidence needed to identify this individual.

References

BirdLife International (2019) Species factsheet: Aquila heliaca. Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 29/05/2019.

Forsman, D. 1999. The Raptors of Europe and the Middle East. T&D Poyser, London

Sultana, J., Gauci, C. & Beaman, M. 1975. A Guide to the Birds of Malta. Malta Ornithological Society, Valletta, Malta.

Sultana, J. & Gauci, C. 1982. A New Guide to the Birds of Malta. The Ornithological Society, Malta.

Edward Bonavia - [email protected]

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