EURAPMON Final Conference - short report

Last week the Eurapmon Final Conference was held in the Sierra Espuña Natural Park, Spain. It was the chance to make the point of the activity made by the network during the five years of activity and to discuss about the future of networking people studying raptors.

Here following some pictures of the meeting

EURAPMON Final Conference

In the next days the Eurapmon Conference will be held near Murcia, Spain. This Final Conference is the concluding event of the European Science Foundation (ESF) Research Networking Programme EURAPMON (Research and monitoring for and with raptors in Europe) which started in May 2010 and will finish in May 2015. The final conference will combine plenary talks given by leading raptor researchers, presentations of EURAPMON results, four workshops, poster presentations and a fieldtrip. The conference aims to improve transnational cooperation in raptor research and monitoring through sharing of knowledge and experience and consider challenges and opportunities for the future beyond EURAPMON. Medraptors will present different contributions at the Conference.

A new fieldwork season

We are close to start a new exciting season of fieldwork at the Strait of Messina. together with our friends of Ornis Italica: on the 15th of March we will start a new extensive fieldwork going on until the end of May. It could be the chance to observe thousands of migrating raptors moving across the Strait and also to meet friends and colleagues. If you would like to join us as a volunteer you are welcome and  we will provide food and accomodation. 

Write an email to us for further information.

New paper out now!

A new Medraptors paper is now available on the Italian Journal of Zoology. It relies on raptor migration of four different species observed at a migration watchsite in southern continental Italy (in the picture below). The results show that the four studied species are influenced differently from each other by weather conditions, topography and time of the day. 

To download the paper click on the link below:

• Agostini N., Scuderi A., Chiatante G., Bogliani G. & Panuccio M. 2015. Factors affecting the visible southbound migration of raptors approaching a water surface. Italian Journal of Zoology DOI: 10.1080/11250003.2015.1009404.

Conference on raptor migration at Natural Sciences Museum of Bolzano

Next Friday at  Natural Sciences Museum of  Bolzano will be held a conference on raptor migration. The talk of Michele Panuccio will show behavioural and ecological aspects of the migration based on case studies from the Mediterranean area. The case studies have been implemented by means of different methods, from traditional visual observation till new technologies.

New paper out now!

A new Medraptors paper is now available on Current Zoology website. It relies on the water-crossing behaviour of European raptors in relation with their morphology, their phylogenetic relationships and energy consumption during powered flapping flight. The results show that this last parameter is the main variable affecting the sea crossing tendency of European birds of prey during migration en route to/from Africa. 

You can download the paper clicking on the link below:

• Agostini N., Panuccio M. & Pasquaretta C. 2015. Morphology, flight performance, and water crossing tendencies of Afro-Palearctic raptors during migration. Current Zoology, in press. 

Wintering common buzzards

Here following some pictures of common buzzards wintering in the beautiful Lake of Campotosto (by our friend Eliseo Strinella). This lake is located in the Laga mountains, Central Italy, inside the Gran Sasso-Laga National Park.