Last March, it was detected the presence of a new species of a scavenger bird of prey for the Network of the Feeding Stations for Scavenger Birds implemented by the project – the Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus). The sighting took place at one of the feeding stations built in Mourão/Moura/Barrancos SPA, more specifically in Barrancos.


The European populations of Egyptian Vulture have been suffering an alarming decline, with the species being classified as “Endangered” in Portugal. Extinct while a breeding species in the south of the country in late twentieth century, currently the sightings of this vulture in the southeastern region of the country are very scarce, as the regular scavenger counts of the project in Mourão/Moura/Barrancos and Guadiana Valley SPAs have shown, with a single sighting during a three years period, in Guadiana Valley SPA (get to know the result here).


The presence of Egyption Vulture at this time of the year in the area of Mourão/Moura/Barrancos is probably related with its pre-breeding migration, since this small vulture is a trans-Saharan migratory species (with some wintering birds in the Iberian Peninsula) and there are no breeding populations’ near this region, from which this individual could belong to. The continued monitoring of the project’s feeding stations will allow us to collect more information and verify this premise.

 

 

This record highlights the importance of the feeding stations for scavenger birds, not only for the conservation of the project’s target species, the Black Vulture, but also for other threatened scavenger birds, like this now detected Egyptian Vulture, the Red Kite (Milvus milvus) often sighted during winter, and the Spanish Imperial Eagle (Aquila adalberti), all of them already detected in the Network of Feeding Stations of Habitat Lince Abutre LIFE project.