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Match between soaring modes of black kites and fine-scale distribution on updrafts
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Understanding how soaring birds use updrafts at small spatial scales is important to identify ecological
constraints of movement, and may help to prevent conflicts between wind-energy development and
the conservation of wildlife. We combined high-frequency GPS animal tracking and fine-spatial-scale
uplift modelling to establish a link between flight behaviour of soaring birds and the distribution
of updrafts. We caught 21 black kites (Milvus migrans) and GPS-tracked them while flying over the
Tarifa region, on the Spanish side of the Strait of Gibraltar. This region has a diverse topography and
land cover, favouring a heterogeneous updraft spatial distribution. Bird tracks were segmented and
classified into flight modes from motion parameters. Thermal and orographic uplift velocities were
modelled from publically available remote-sensing and meteorological data. We found that birds
perform circular soaring in areas of higher predicted thermal uplift and linear soaring in areas of higher
predicted orographic uplift velocity. We show that updraft maps produced from publically available data
can be used to predict where soaring birds will concentrate their flight paths and how they will behave
in flight. We recommend the use of this methodological approach to improve environmental impact
assessments of new wind-energy installations
Descrição
Palavras-chave
soaring birds updrafts black kites Milvus migrans flight behaviour
Contexto Educativo
Citação
SCIENTIFIC REPOrTS | 7 (1): 6421
Editora
Nature Publishing Group