Hi Yang
This is a stunning study. One of the last remaining major ?? in our knowledge of Palearctic-Afrotropical raptor movement. Many people have been puzzled where these birds spend their winter and why so few are reported in Africa. We are inundated with small accipiters with the widespread Shikra in particular a potential Levant when seen briefly or at a
distance.
Historically Levants are virtually unknown in East Africa with just a single record from NW Tanzania.
this from Britton (1980) Birds of East Africa.
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103. Accipiter brevipes
(Severtzov) Levant
Sparrowhawk T
175
A
vagrant from the Palaearctic region, collected at Busenge in NW Tanzania
on 1 December 1921.
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there have subsequently been "a couple of records" of flocks. We NEVER see flocks of accipiters so both observations were a serious surprise.
David Fisher found a flock in western Kenya on 24 January 2010. This is his posting to the African raptors group.
During a recent Sunbird tour to Kenya led by Edwin Selempo and myself, we saw a flock of 23 Levant Sparrowhawks apparently migrating north in western Kenya. I was amazed by this sighting at the time, being fully aware of the status of the species in Kenya and East Africa. Since getting home Colin Jackson has drawn my attention to Neil Baker's sighting of a flock of 7-12 birds in Tanzania on 2 January 2009 (posted to this group on 5 Jan 2009). These two sightings apart there are no records of flocks of this species being seen anywhere in the winter period as far as I am aware - only records of
single birds and occasionally couples. According to Raptors of the World the winter distribution and habits of this species are essentially unknown.
We saw our birds around mid-day on 24 January at Ahero rice cultivation scheme, which lies 20-30 km south of Kisumu. Edwin first spotted one bird circling above the vehicle and said to me "What is this Accipiter with dark wing tips?". I looked up but couldn't see it, but then within moments Edwin said "Oh, there are four of them!" Alarm bells rang immediately and I shouted "Sound like Levants!" and jumped out of the vehicle. The birds were fairly high and by the time I got on to them were gliding north across the plain of the rice fields. But then to even greater amazement we watched them join a spiral of other small Accipiters and I counted
23 birds. By this time they were somewhat distant and so I grabbed my 'scope and watched them through that for some minutes. I could see the diagnostic plumage of several adult males amongst the spiral. After gaining height in typical 'migrating raptor' fashion they then peeled off and glided north becoming too distant to merit watching for any longer. At no point were they close enough for me to obtain photographs, but I must have watched them for close on five minutes I think.
and Liz and I found a flock of "at least a dozen" birds early on the 2 Jan 2009 at -7.41459 / 36.49877 at 548m. These were in low rainfall dry
dense Acacia-Baobab country that had recently received rain after 7 months of dry. Birds were bathing in roadside puddles and flighting through the lower canopy of the Acacias. With new foliage on the trees it was not possible to count but there could have been at least 20 birds in the immediate vicinity. There general movement was southwards.
we have a photo record from Lake Eyasi by Nani Schmelling in Feb 09 at -3.47303 / 35.35123 and another from the nearby Crater Highlands (Stein your photo record not in our database, I'll dig it out from your emails) that I'll confirm. There is also a possible from Mtwara on 26 Feb 2013 at -10.25715 / 40.18215 (Jez, do you recall this bird
?).
I'm posting this to both our Tanzania birding group (354 members) the Kenya birding group (350 members) and the African Raptors group as we all have a role in helping you understand your findings.
Please let me have all the GPS fixes and we will endeavor to take habitat photos for you of every observation.
and many folk will want to comment on your analysis to date (click on this dropbox link).
THIS IS SO EXCITING ..................
many many congratulations, really hope you have you the funding for 10 more sat tags ??
Neil
Neil and Liz
Baker, Tanzania Bird Atlas, P.O. Box 1605, Iringa, Tanzania.
Mobiles: +255 785-311298 and +255 784-834273.
http://tanzaniabirdatlas.com
Subscribe to:
tanzaniabirds-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
Dear Neil Baker,
This is Chien-Hung Yang, one of the 2014 spring conservation science trainees of Hawk Mountain. I am working on the migration ecology of Levant Sparrowhawk by satellite tracking of Hawk Mountain. Dr. Keith Bildstein suggested me to contact you to see if you could provide us some opinions for this study.
The attached is our preliminary finding on this Levant Sparrowhawk.
This Levant Sparrowhawk was caught as a nestling in Armenia in 2013. It successfully made its outbound journey and overwintered in Tanzania. Now it has already returned to Armenia. However, there are few informations of this raptor's
wintering distribution in Africa and I can only find a couple sighting records in Tanzania. But this Levant Sparrowhawk spent about 3 months in Tanzania.
It is also interesting that this juvenile not stayed in the same area during wintering. It arrived west Tanzania in mid November, and then it continued moving toward east Tanzania. We have no idea why it has this directional movement when wintering.
When it started spring migrating, it flew toward northwest instead of directly north in the beginning and turned back to the normal route in mid April. Although we found this route match the distribution of tropical moist forest, we still can not make a connection between its migration and habitat due to less information.
We suggested that food resource might be a factor that affects its migration and wintering behavior. But you have more knowledge about Tanzania and African ecology
and there could be something we don't know or miss. Could you please give us some suggestions or comments about this preliminary finding?
Thank you and best regards,
On Saturday, 14
June 2014, 6:40, Chien-Hung Yang <chienhung.yang@gmail.com> wrote:
Dear Neil Baker,
This is Chien-Hung Yang, one of the 2014 spring conservation science trainees of Hawk Mountain. I am working on the migration ecology of Levant Sparrowhawk by satellite tracking of Hawk Mountain. Dr. Keith Bildstein suggested me to contact you to see if you could provide us some opinions for this study.
The attached is our preliminary finding on this Levant Sparrowhawk.
This Levant Sparrowhawk was caught as a nestling in Armenia in 2013. It successfully made its outbound journey and overwintered in Tanzania. Now it has already returned to Armenia. However, there are few informations of this raptor's wintering distribution in Africa and I can only find a couple sighting records in Tanzania. But this Levant Sparrowhawk spent about 3 months in Tanzania.
It is also interesting that this juvenile not stayed in the same area during wintering. It arrived west Tanzania in mid November, and then it continued moving toward east Tanzania. We have no idea why it has this directional movement when wintering.
When it started spring migrating, it flew toward northwest instead of directly north in the beginning and turned back to the normal route in mid April. Although we found this route match the distribution of tropical moist forest, we still can not make a connection between its migration and habitat due to less information.
We suggested that food resource might be a factor that affects its migration and wintering behavior. But you have more knowledge about Tanzania and African ecology and there could be something we don't know or miss. Could you please give us some suggestions or comments about this preliminary finding?
Thank you and best regards,