The great bustard is a vulnerable species of bird with a wide range from Iberia and northwest Morocco in the west to China in the east. There are two subspecies: Otis tarda tarda, which extends from Iberia and north Morocco through central and southeast Europe to Turkey, Iran and east to Kazakhstan and central Siberia; […]
Tag: great bustard
The World’s Heaviest Flying Bird Uses Plants as a Form of Medication, New Study Finds
The world’s heaviest flying bird uses plants as a form of medication, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Researchers from Madrid studied data on 619 droppings of great bustards and found that two species of plants that were eaten more than other food had “antiparasitic effects.” Antiparasitic drugs are […]
MacDancer
Yesterday Team Brazil (my brother Gidon, Ami, Eli and myself) reunited and ventured deep into the Negev Desert in search of some unique birds and mammals. Our first stop (Kelach Sinai NR) was very cold and bird activity was rather minimal during the golden hour. We had one brief female MacQueen’s Bustard that shot off […]
Video: Power lines killing the last remaining Great Indian Bustards in India
On Dec. 9, researchers discovered the remains of an extremely rare bird in India’s Thar Desert, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. All that remained was a pile of bones, and large, brown feathers, fluttering beneath a power line. The dead bird, one of the last remaining wild individuals of the critically endangered great Indian […]
POLL: Should Arab sheikhs be allowed to hunt bustards?
One of Pakistan’s four provinces has banned Arab sheikhs from hunting a protected species of bird, defying Islamabad’s longstanding policy of giving hunting licences to key regional allies. Swaths of habitat used in the winter by the migratory houbara bustard are allocated in blocks to the some of the most senior people in the United […]
Male Birds Poison Themselves to Appear Sexier – a First
The lengths we go to for love can sometimes be dramatic – and so it is for male great bustards (Otis tarda), whose daredevil diet of poisonous beetles may actually help them get a date, a new study reveals. Scientists already knew the large birds, which are native to parts of Europe and Asia, snack […]
Melanistic Montagu’s Harrier and other Raptors
Here are some of the raptor photos we managed to see with my Swiss group from Arcatour last week. The wind direction swung around to give us moderate to strong Levante (easterlies) for five days and only died down on our last two days. Still, knowing what the migrating raptors do and where they will […]
Great Bustard: the great show in the plains
The Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is one of the largest and most spectacular European birds. Mature males can attain a wingspan of 2,4 meters and a weight of 18 kg, and are among the world’s heaviest flying birds; only its African relative the Kori Bustard and the Mute Swan can dispute that title. Females are […]