Taiwanese raptor experts have succeeded in tracing the migration patterns of the endangered gray-faced buzzard, the Forestry Bureau said on Thursday.
The research team, which was financed by the bureau, released the findings of its year-long study that showed that buzzards usually stop over in Taiwan every October on their way to winter in the Philippines.
The raptors, known as Butastur indicus, then fly north in the spring, making another stop in Taiwan before continuing on to the China-Russia border at Heilongjiang Province or North Korea to breed, the researchers found.
Between 15,000 and 35,000 gray-faced buzzards stop in Taiwan each year.
Keen to find out more about the birds’ migration patterns, researchers from Academia Sinica and the Raptor Research Group of Taiwan tagged five adult buzzards caught in Kending National Park and the Mount Bagua National Scenic Area in Changhua County in October last year and March. The five birds were dubbed Cape No. 1 to No. 5.
With the help of the tiny satellite transmitters attached to the birds, the researchers were able to track the movements of Cape No. 1, No. 2 and No. 5.
As of Monday, the three birds had already passed through Taiwan and two were en route to the Philippines for the winter, while one had already landed there.
Cape No. 1 was found to have traveled over 12,000km in a broad circle covering the southern tip of the Philippines and the northern tip of Heilongjiang Province, with Taiwan as a midway stop and a mountainous area in China’s Jilin Province as a rest stop for breeding in early June, the bureau said.
Meanwhile, Cape No. 2 and No. 5 also flew over 12,000km in a migration circle, stopping at breeding grounds in North Korea.
The researchers lost contact with Cape No. 3 and No. 4 somewhere over the ocean as the birds were flying north and their transmitters remained silent, the bureau said.
The findings — the first migration data on gray-faced buzzards — are a good foundation for further research, bureau officials said.
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