Eerste stappen van jonge Nederlandse Zeearenden Haliaeetus albicilla met GPS-GSM zenders

In 2019, four White-tailed Eagle nestlings in The Netherlands were equipped with a GSM-GPS logger. All birds fledged successfully and dispersed from their nesting area between late August and mid-September. Both birds tagged in the Province of Flevoland reached northern Germany in early September. Two juveniles from the southwest of the country travelled respectively to northern France and to a coastal area west of Amsterdam. All birds returned to their natal areas from November onwards. The Flevoland juveniles spent the autumn period in the Oostvaardersplassen, in the company of at least ten other juvenile and immature White-tailed Eagles. Here, water management resulted in low water levels in favour of regeneration of marsh habitats, which attracted large concentrations of waterfowl and increased the availability of easy-to-catch large fish, like Carp. The juveniles from the southwestern Netherlands spent the autumn mainly in large wetlands, like Biesbosch, Noordwaard, Haringvliet and Volkerakmeer. The tracking data may shed new light on habitat use and dispersive movements from post-fledging to recruitment into the breeding population. A second aim is to quantify anthropogenic mortality such as poisoning, shooting and collision with high voltage cables and wind turbines.