Birds of prey in steppes of Russia
August 9th, 2010 Posted in Field researches, Monitoring, Photos | 1 Comment »25-30 April 2010 a group of Ukrainian and Russian ornithologists, traveling by car on the route Luhansk (Ukraine) – Orenburg (Ukraine) to participate in the ХІІІ International Ornithological Conference have collected data on distribution and numbers of birds of prey. They are presented below.
Photo by M.Gavrilyuk, V.Vetrov, E.M.Pisanets, V.Remenny
Experts of different profile traveled by three cross-country vehicles. They were ornithologists V.P.Belik (Rostov-on-Don, Russia), V.V.Vetrov (Luhansk, Ukraine), M.Gavrilyuk (Cherkasy, Ukraine), S.P.Litvinenko (Luhansk), Yu.V.Milobog (Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine), A.B.Chapyhina (Kharkiv, Ukraine); batrachologists E.M.Pisanets, V.Remenny (both from Kyiv, Ukraine); entomologist G.Yevtushenko, botanist N.I.Konoplya (both from Luhansk); student A.Rashelevskaya (Kryvyi Rih). Three of them were doctors and four candidates of science (PhD). In spite of different inerests of the expedition members, a particular attention in the travel was paid to observation of birds of prey.
The travel in the territory of Russia crossed Rostov, Volgograd, Saratov, Samara and Orenburg regions (map). Undoutedly, having passed 2000 km for 6 days, it was hard to collect detail information. Moreover, a part of the valuable time was spent on customs, searching for roads (as a famous writer Gogol’ spoke the roads are one of two main griefs of Russia) and other unforeseen circumstances. However, even in these conditions we managed to get a general image of composition and distribution of birds of prey in steppes of South Russia.
Totally for the period of trip we observed 18 species of Falconiformes and 3 species of Owls. Above all we noticed unequal distribution and numbers of rare species of birds of prey.