New birds of prey settle in Belarus

The long-tailed eagle has been observed by a team of Minsk bird lovers on the territory of the Volma fish farm in the Cherven District – as informed by the APB-BirdLife Belarus Association    

As stated, the bird was spotted on Augusta 22nd by Andrei Borodin, a co-ordinator of the association of bird watching enthusiasts – Club200.

The long-tailed eagle is a fairly large bird of prey – with the total length of 61-88cm, the wing length of 55-62cm, and the weight of 2.6-3.7kg. It’s mostly found in Central Asia and Kazakhstan, as well as in southern Transbaikalia and along the shores of Lake Baikal. Being a migratory bird, the long-tailed eagle winters in India and Afghanistan. It inhabits steppes and semi-deserts, close to water – although the presence of large rivers or lakes is not a vital condition for its habitat. The long-tailed eagle eats mainly fish – grabbing it at the water surface, but also preys on rodents, birds, frogs, turtles, small reptiles, waterfowl and rarely carrion. It sometimes steals fish from fishermen or smaller predators.

The long-tailed eagle is a rare bird under threat of extinction – much owing to the loss and degradation of its habitat as a result of marsh reclamation, agricultural processing of lands and human disturbance.

“The long-tailed eagle is the only bird in the northern hemisphere (at least a prey bird) that breeds in the south of its range in winter and migrates north in summer. The young bird which we registered had to travel at least 5,000km to become a sensation in Belarus,” Valery Dombrovsky, a leading researcher at the National Academy of Sciences’ Research Centre for Bioresources, said.

In turn, the Director of the APB-BirdLife Association, Aleksandr Vinchevsky, noted that long-tailed eagles are sometimes registered in Russia, Ukraine and Poland. Young birds of this species are very similar to young white-tailed eagles, and even ornithologists sometimes mistakenly identify them. It’s not yet known how many eagles there will be near Minsk, but bird lovers from the neighbouring states hope these birds will settle for long.

After the Belarusian Ornithological Commission’s approval, the long-tailed eagle will become the 338th species in the list of birds of Belarus.