Birds move because of internal factors such as for defense or to obtain food, yet the environment the animal experiences also drives movement. Researchers studied trade-offs golden eagles face as they make movement decisions by examining factors such as age and sex, topographic and meteorological data, and time of day.
A complex and sometimes interacting set of internal and external factors determined movement behavior. Reproductive state - manifested as age, sex, and seasonal effects - had a significant influence on the probability of being in motion and, to a lesser extent, on speed of motion. Likewise, movement responses to the features in the external environment such as updraft strength and solar radiation intensity, were strong. An important finding was that topographic influences were often more relevant than meteorological influences in determining patterns of flight behavior. Their findings form a framework for further refining scientific understanding of the ecology of soaring birds and animal movement.
Sur, M., Duerr, A.E., Bell, D.A., Fisher, R.N., Tracey, J.A., Bloom, P.H., Miller, T., Katzner, T.E., 2019, Relevance of individual and environmental drivers of movement of Golden Eagles: Ibis, https://doi.org/10.1111/ibi.12766.
Related Content
Bird Movement and Migration
Related Content
- Science
Bird Movement and Migration
Migration is an amazing annual event. Every year billions of animals – birds, mammals, insects, and fish – make long-distance journeys from breeding grounds to wintering grounds. Most northern hemisphere birds migrate southward, but there are many other ways that birds move seasonally. If we want to protect birds that take these long distance journeys, we need to understand why they move, why they... - Partners
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.