Avian species often take advantage of human-made structures, such as perching on power poles, although this can lead to negative effects for both birds and infrastructure. It has been demonstrated that anchor-type pylons, with strain insulators, are amongst the most dangerous of these structures. Our goal was to develop a methodological approach to evaluate the ways in which raptors perch on the six most commonly used strain insulator configurations in Spain, and to build a risk index that can be used to prioritise them. To study the ways raptors perch, we worked with six wildlife rescue centres in central Spain for almost a year assessing these six strain insulator configurations in 83 perch trials with 176 raptors in ample flying pens. We analysed 475 complete survey days, with an approximate number of 258,960 analysed pictures, including 6,766 perchings on strain insulators. We assessed the influential factors for these 6,766 perchings and developed a novel approach to prioritise strain insulator configurations that can be used anywhere. Our results suggest that longer insulator strains (i.e. PECA-1000 and Caon-C3670) are the safest, according to our prioritization criteria, although these results require further assessment in the field. Managers and conservationists should take into account these results to improve management and conservation actions.

Saudi Arabia is the fastest growing electricity consumer in the Middle East, with a rapidly expanding network of powerlines. Bird mortality through electrocution and collision has been recorded in the country, but so far there is little information as to how much the electricity infrastructure affects globally threatened raptor populations that migrate to Saudi Arabia. In 2019, the world’s largest wintering congregation of Steppe Eagles Aquila nipalensis was discovered near a rubbish dump in central Saudi Arabia. We evaluated whether powerlines in the vicinity of this, and another congregation site, caused mortality of large birds. In November 2019, we surveyed powerlines within 6 km of two focal rubbish dumps at Al Qunfudhah (12.4 km) and Ushaiqer (2 km). We found 52 carcasses of five species, of which 85% were Steppe Eagles. Based on the age of these carcasses, we coarsely extrapolate that 14.4 km of powerlines near these two congregation sites may kill 94–240 Steppe Eagles per winter, representing up to 0.3% of their global population. We call for the urgent safeguarding of powerlines that cause mortality near known Steppe Eagle congregation sites, and the adoption and implementation of regulations that ensure that future infrastructure is constructed with designs that are safe for birds.

Understanding the environmental drivers of demographic processes is a prerequisite for providing the evidence-based conservation guidance and management actions required to address management goals at population level. Human activities, to which most species are not adapted, are having an ever-increasing impact on the environment. Most policies and strategies focus on broad-scale conservation actions and disregard the fact that this type of action may not be adequate at local scale. In addition, even though the main conservation targets are well known, managers and practitioners lack an explicit framework in which to identify the varying requirements of site-specific conservation actions. Our aim was to provide an accurate tool for prioritizing specific local-scale conservation actions for endangered territorial birds. In this study we describe our proposed framework using a population of the endangered Bonelli’s Eagle Aquila fasciata as a case study. We identified the most relevant environmental drivers linked to demographic parameters (occupation, productivity and survival) at local scale shaping the dynamics of the Bonelli’s Eagle population in Catalonia (Spain). This information will be useful for designing specific local-scale conservation actions in eagles’ territories with low demographic parameter values. This is a good example of how applied research and achievable conservation practices are applicable to other Bonelli’s eagle populations and to those of other endangered raptors.

African White-backed Vultures were recently uplisted to ‘Critically Endangered’ by IUCN due to declines across their range. Poisoning is widely accepted as the major reason for these declines. Botswana supports a high number of this species (breeding pairs > c.1,200), but as yet no published information exists on their breeding success in the country. However, mass poisonings within Botswana and neighbouring countries have killed thousands of White-backed Vultures in recent years. We therefore expected that nesting numbers may have declined in this region if these poisoning events killed local breeding birds. We used information from aerial surveys conducted between 2006 and 2017 in Khwai and Linyanti, two important breeding areas for this species in north-central Botswana, to determine if there was any change in nesting numbers and breeding success of White-backed Vultures. Results showed an overall 53.5% decline in nesting numbers, with a greater decline in Linyanti than in Khwai. In both areas, breeding success was significantly lower in 2017 than it was 10 ten years earlier. We recommend that similar repeat surveys are continued to provide greater confidence in the trends of both nesting numbers and breeding performance. Population viability analysis suggested that if the productivity levels detected in 2017 were a true indication of current productivity levels for this population, and if recent high poisoning rates continue, this population could be extirpated from the area in the next 13 years.

Excavations at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B ritual site of Naḥal Roded 110 in the Southern Negev, Israel, have revealed evidence—unique to this region—for on-site flint knapping and abundant raptor remains.

Illegal hunting is a widespread problem in the Maltese Islands. As well as having a significant impact on the islands' breeding birds, the illegal hunting of migratory birds has a wider, international dimension. To investigate the international impact of illegal hunting in Malta we considered the entire ring recovery database of the Valletta Bird Ringing Scheme, from the 1920s to the present. All records of birds that were ringed overseas and shot by hunters in Malta were analysed, comprising a total of 435 records of 84 species from 36 countries. The majority of these ring recoveries (91.7%) were from species listed as protected and non-huntable throughout the European Union, with a significant proportion listed as European Species of Conservation Concern. Birds of prey were particularly represented in the database, 78.6% of which were ringed as nestlings or juveniles, highlighting the impact of illegal hunting on this group of species in particular. Species targeted illegally by Maltese hunters originate from countries throughout Europe and Africa, particularly Finland, Sweden, Tunisia, Italy and Germany. For rare species or those with small breeding populations in affected countries, illegal hunting could therefore have a significant impact on the long-term persistence of European populations. Poaching of species such as the pallid harrier Circus macrourus and saker falcon Falco cherrug could have a global impact on their populations.

The commercial bushmeat trade threatens numerous species in the forests of West and Central Africa. Hunters shoot and trap animals, which are transported to rural and urban markets for sale. Village-based surveys of hunter offtake and surveys of bushmeat markets have shown that mammals and reptiles are affected most, followed by birds. However, hunters also consume some animals in forest camps and these may have been overlooked in surveys that have focused on bushmeat extracted from the forest. A number of studies have used indirect methods, such as hunter diaries, to quantify this additional offtake but results can be difficult to verify. We examined discarded animal remains at 13 semi-permanent hunting camps in the Ebo Forest, Cameroon, over 272 days. Twenty-one species were identified from 49 carcasses, of which birds constituted 55%, mammals 43% and other taxa 2%. The mammals identified were typical of those recorded in previous bushmeat studies but we recorded several species of birds rarely recorded elsewhere. Offtake of bird species increased with mean body mass. We extrapolated our results to the 34 known hunting camps in the Ebo Forest and estimated that a minimum of 97 birds are hunted annually in a catchment area of c. 479 km2. We conclude that some bird species may be hunted more frequently than previous research suggests and this has important conservation implications for larger-bodied species such as raptors and hornbills.

A survey of the diurnal raptor community (46 resident species) at five altitudinal levels from 100 to 4600 m was made in Venezuela using 106 1-km2 sample quadrats and then compared with similar censuses (211 plots) in southwestern Colombia and eastern Ecuador. Six habitat types were defined and habitat preferences were measured from every encountered birds and from the association between individual abundances and the coverage of habitat types on plots. The overall species richness steeply declined with elevation in all three countries. The raptor community consisted mostly of tropical species that rapidly decreased in both abundance and frequency of occurrence with elevation. A small set of subtropical-temperate forest specialists partly replaced them at mid-elevation and only two species occurred in the paramo of Venezuela, against 5–7 in the other countries. Although originally the gradients were probably almost completely covered with forest, a large part of the raptor community is now composed of grassland species, three of them extending from the lowlands to the tree line. The relative impoverishment of the Venezuelan community, especially at upper levels, is attributed to a peninsular effect at the narrow extreme northern tip of the Andes and perhaps also to former forest fragmentation. Within some species, different subspecies had discrete altitudinal distributions and interspecific competition may explain differences in the range extension of some species between countries. Today, however, accelerating deforestation may result in a severe decline of forest-interior species and a probable reduction in the altitudinal range of at least some of them. Species naturally associated with forest gaps or edges usually tolerate a high degree of forest fragmentation and degradation but only one of them may become abundant in heavily human-altered woodlands. Few grassland specialists have become more widely distributed in the increasingly deforested landscapes.

Since 1970 there has been a dramatic decline of large raptors and terrestrial birds in West African savannahs. Comparative dry season transect counts over 4,697 km of driven transects were performed in 2004–2005 in south-eastern Burkina Faso to assess the abundance of 41 raptor species and large terrestrial species in four National Parks and surrounding hunting zones and cultivated areas. Population sizes were estimated for larger taxa in protected areas using distance sampling and nest searching. Most large vultures and eagles were generally found only in protected areas, with fewer individuals in the surrounding buffer zones and nearly none elsewhere. Conversely, the abundance of most of the smaller species was not different between protected and cultivated areas, and three species were more abundant in cultivated areas. Helmeted guineafowl Numida meleagris, Stanley’s bustard Neotis denhami and Abyssinian ground hornbill Bucorvus abyssinicus were not found outside protected areas. Within the 1.4 million ha of protected areas in and around south-east Burkina Faso, six species of eagles and vultures have estimated populations of c. 100–200 pairs, five species c. 50–100 pairs, five species have populations of <50 pairs, and the secretary bird Sagittarius serpentarius was not recorded. No specific reason for the collapse of large raptors in non-protected areas (which account for 99% of the area of the countries studied) has been identified, but the consequences of fast human population growth and habitat changes, overhunting, disturbances and poisoning may have played a critical role. Updating information on the conservation status of these species would be an important first step towards their long-term conservation.

On the island of Java, Indonesia, two congeneric hawk-eagles occur, i.e. the endemic Javan hawk-eagle Spizaetus bartelsi and the wide-ranging changeable hawk-eagle S. cirrhatus. Comparisons with similar species-pairs in South-East Asia suggest that these species may be competitors both in habitat and diet. The limited area and less-diverse resources of islands should make competition between similar species more acute and should lead to marked niche segregation, with a larger niche breath for the endemic species. Spizaetusbartelsi was recorded significantly more frequently in forest habitats from sea level to 2500 m asl and S. cirrhatus more in open habitats up to 1600 m asl. Contrary to the prediction, the endemic hawk-eagle occurred in a smaller range of habitats (four out of seven) compared with S. cirrhatus that was found in all seven habitat types. Although significant, habitat segregation was not as well marked as in some similar co-occurring Spizaetus species. The relative overlap between the two species may in part result from human influences with the dense continuous rain forest being replaced by more open forest types.

We studied the use of European hare (Lepus europaeus) carcasses by avian scavengers in Argentinean Patagonia. A total of 16 hare carcasses were placed in locations that could be observed without disturbing birds feeding on them. Six avian species fed on these carcasses: chimango caracara (Milvago chimango), crested caracara (Polyborus plancus), black vulture (Coragyps atratus), grey eagle-buzzard (Geranoaetus melanoleucus), red-backed hawk (Buteo polyosoma) and cinereous harrier (Circus cinereus). Turkey vultures (Cathartes aura), although abundant, never fed on the hare carcasses. The Andean condor also did not feed on the carcasses. Mammals visited hare carcasses on only two occasions. Of the hare carcasses, 69% were fully consumed during the first day of exposure and 25% in two days. There was no difference in the time elapsed from the placement of the carcass and its detection by crested and chimango caracaras. There were similar time periods from detection to first arrival, and time elapsed from first arrival to the start of feeding at the carcass by crested and chimango caracaras. Hare body parts were consumed in different proportions by crested and chimango caracaras whereas black vultures consumed the whole carcass. Interspecific hierarchies at the carcass in a decreasing sequence of dominance were crested caracara > black vulture > chimango caracara, coinciding with that expected from a body mass perspective. The scavenging species that consume hare carcasses did not show a clear pattern denoting they were a highly interdependent assemblage in the way described for scavengers in Africa.

The growth and the food requirements of the European barn owl (Tyto alba) were studied in three groups of captive chicks. One group of chicks, raised in ad libitum food conditions by their parents, was used to measure body mass and linear growth of a number of structural body components at their characteristic growth rate. A second group of chicks, hand-raised with food ad libitum until fledging, was used to measure food requirement at the characteristic growth rate. A third group, hand-raised with restricted feeding, was used to specify the plasticity of growth and food requirements still compatible with a normal development at fledging. Chicks of both sexes of the first two groups experienced an overshoot in body mass (maximum of 391 g) when approximately 40 days old, followed by a decrease (to a mass of 314 g) until fledging at 60 days old, giving a mass distribution with age in the form of a bell-shaped curve. The daily food intake also showed a bell-shaped curve with a peak value of 80 ± 10 g of fresh mice/day when the body mass was maximum. The decrease of food intake preceding fledging was spontaneous. The average daily food intake was 67 ± 17 g/day between the ages of 20 and 60 days. In the restricted feeding group, however, the same timing for linear growth and fledging was achieved with a 17% reduction of daily food intake. For the same fledging body mass as the ad libitum fed group, there was a flattening of the body mass curve. The significance of the overshoot in body mass and food intake is discussed in terms of the chick's and brood's advantages and in terms of parental investment in this species with hatching asynchrony.