{"id":428,"date":"2026-09-04T14:46:56","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T12:46:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/?p=428"},"modified":"2026-09-04T15:01:52","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T13:01:52","slug":"greater-spotted-eagle-tagging-results-in-western-polesie-in-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/2026\/09\/04\/greater-spotted-eagle-tagging-results-in-western-polesie-in-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater Spotted Eagle Tagging Results in Western Polesie in 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The 14th annual monitoring season for the Greater Spotted Eagle (Clanga clanga<\/em>) has concluded. In Western Polesie, 2025 was characterized by weather anomalies \u2013 a snowless winter, a dry, cool spring with frosts and summer floods. All of this significantly affected the breeding of many breeding species in Polesie. For many birds, this season proved to be a failure \u2013 broods and offspring died due to the cold spring and some pairs did not breed at all. Therefore, investigating the problem of Greater Spotted Eagle breeding in wetland ecosystems was of particular interest to the team of scientists composed of M. Franchuk, A. Simon and Y. Korkh, who published a summary of their work in 2025 on the website of the Ukrainian Center for the Study of Birds of Prey<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This species has been under detailed study in the Rivne Nature Reserve and surrounding areas since 2012. During this time, comprehensive monitoring of its breeding population was organized, as described in another report. Not all plans were implemented in 2025, but key tasks were completed: known nests were monitored, new nests and breeding territories were found, the study area near the Pripyat River in the Pripyat-Stokhod National Park was expanded, and monitoring of breeding ecology continued using camera traps and chick tagging.
Ringing of Greater Spotted Eagles in Ukraine was initiated by Serhiy Domashevsky and a team of foreign experts specializing in this species in 2012 in the Rivne Nature Reserve. Since then, colored plastic rings have been registered for Ukrainian Greater Spotted Eagles. The tagging has not been discontinued and is conducted annually. Over 70 birds have been observed since then. More than 10 returns from abroad and sightings of tagged birds were recorded using camera traps, which are installed annually on Greater Spotted Eagle nests since 2019. Detections of tagged Greater Spotted Eagles by camera traps in other countries were also recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, 15 known Greater Spotted Eagle nests were checked. Seven of these had offspring, one had abandoned clutches, and the remaining nests were empty. The reasons for the seven nests being empty are unknown. However, territorial individuals were observed near these nests. From the authors’ experience, an unoccupied nest does not indicate a failed breeding. It is quite possible that Greater Spotted Eagles occupied another nest nearby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seven Greater Spotted Eagles were successfully ringed (five in the Rivne Nature Reserve, one on its border and one in the Pripyat-Stokhod National Park). Metal rings from the Ukrainian Bird Ringing Center and colorful, gray plastic rings were used for marking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysis of the morphological characteristics of Greater Spotted Eagle chicks from mid-July 2025 revealed that five pairs had typical age characteristics. Two pairs had relatively young chicks. A possible explanation for the late breeding of these pairs is the influence of unfavorable spring weather conditions or the individual characteristics of these birds on the breeding date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, we were able to continue the telemetry studies using GPS receivers which began in 2019. The authors emphasize that, based on many years of research on the nesting ecology of birds of prey, Greater Spotted Eagles, unlike other predators inhabiting wetland ecosystems, are most adapted to habitat changes in their own breeding territories and are flexible in their food choices, able to survive droughts, fires, cooling anomalies, etc. The greatest negative impact on the studied population of Greater Spotted Eagles is currently having interbreeding with a closely related species \u2013 the lesser spotted eagle (Clanga pomarina<\/em>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 14th annual monitoring season for the Greater Spotted Eagle (Clanga clanga) has concluded. In Western Polesie, 2025 was characterized by weather anomalies \u2013 a snowless winter, a dry, cool spring with frosts and summer floods. All of this significantly affected the breeding of many breeding species in Polesie. For many birds, this season proved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[49,50,48,51,11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sparrow.up.poznan.pl\/life\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}