16 Oct- Raptor Migration Update (Thoolakharka Nepal)

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Bearded Vulture (16 Oct)
Booted Eagle- Dark Morph  (16 Oct)
Northern Hobby (15 Oct)
16 Oct is the 32nd day of Raptor Migration Count in Thoolakharka Nepal. Although we passed 32 days in the watch site the number of migrating raptors is still low (Approximately 1000 birds), however the diversity of the raptors is high (total 24 species). Thoolakharka is the famous site for Steppe Eagle migration around 10000 and it’s a beginning for this species that is the cause for small number for this time period. If we compared with the last year data the number of some species like OHB, Black Eared Kite, Northern Hobby and Common Kestrel is very low, we presume this is due to several causes like change of weather pattern (tropical rainstorm and late monsson), climate change or some problem on their population (bad year for the breeding).
In this time of the year we are seeing OHB (mostly juvenile and females), Booted Eagle (mostly dark), Northern Hobby, Common Kestrel, Lesser Kestrel, Northern Sparrowhawk, Shikra, Steppe Eagle, White-rumped Vulture, Himalayan Vulture etc. We hope these species will be continued for coming days also and the number of the Steppe Eagle and Himalayan Vulture will be increased.  Other birds comes on migration were Red-rumped and Barn Swallows and approximately 20,000 swallows (mainly red-rumped –approx 18,000) passed on previous days. Now the migration of swallows is going down --- almost no birds for last few days.



Species
Total
Oriental Honey-buzzard
255
Common (Himalayan) Buzzard
30
Long-legged Buzzard
0
Upland Buzzard
0
Unidentified Buteo
0
Northern Sparrowhawk
26
Northern Goshawk
1
Shikra
9
Unidentified Sparrowhawk
1
Steppe Eagle
20
Booted Eagle
40
Short-toed Eagle
0
Crested Serpent-eagle
6
Pallas's Fish Eagle
0
Imperial Eagle
0
Indian Spotted Eagle
0
Greater Spotted Eagle
0
Bonelli's Eagle
7
Mountain Hawk-eagle
7
Golden Eagle
0
Unidentified Eagle
1
Black Kite
201
Black-Eared Kite
35
Osprey
2
Hen Harrier
1
Eastern Marsh Harrier
0
Pallid Harrier
2
Unidentified Harrier
3
Peregrine Falcon ssp. calidis
9
Saker Falcon
0
Eurasian Hobby
77
Amur Falcon
6
Lesser Kestrel
17
Common Kestrel
120
Unidentified Falcon
6
White-rumped Vultrue
82
Egyptian Vulture
14
Himalayan Vulture
20
Cinereous (Black) Vulture
1
Eurasian Griffon
0
Unidentified Vulture
0
Unidentified Raptor
2
Total
1001

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