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| Juvenile golden eagle fitted with a satellite transmitter |
Golden eagles are long-lived birds that do not reach
maturity until their fourth year. Much is known about their ecology, but this concentrates on established breeding
birds. Next to nothing is known about their ecology prior
to becoming breeders. Conservation and management decisions
are made about golden eagles and other long-lived species
that are focused on territorial pairs and use information
from breeders.
In 2004 Natural Research started a a self-funded programme
of marking golden eagles with long-lived satellite-received
radio transmitters (PTTs). These will allow us to track birds
during the first years of their life, giving us a first
insight into their movements and what habitats are of
importance to them. Their movements may highlight the importance to pre-breeding eagles of open areas in the uplands that are not within the home range of territorial eagles, thus affecting the way these areas are seen in terms of sustaining a healthy golden eagle population.
To date we have tracked five young golden eagles in the months following fledging. Below is a map of recent movements. We will be updating this map on a regular basis, probably monthly (though if interesting movements are made we will post those). Natural Research is committed to finding out more about the ecology of non-breeding eagles. This and other initiatives aimed at gathering more data are on-going, and we are looking at novel ways of collecting other information.
For more information contact M. McGrady: mike.mcgrady@natural-research.org.
Movement of juvenile golden eagle fitted with a satellite transmitter in Scotland in July 2005.
 Archive of Maps (coming soon)
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