HoverOverUs

Contributor: Richard Frèze.
Country: France. Region: Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur.
Departement: Bouches-du-Rhône.

A small population of Short-toed Eagles, of about 10/12 pairs, is studied since 2002. They live on the hills located at the east of the town of Marseilles in the area of “Basse Provence”.
The zone occupies an area of approximately 900 km² but because of strong human activities only a part is favorable to be settled by the birds. Great a difference between hunting and nesting territories can’t be noticed for the region.
The vegetation is made up primarily by scrubland with Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera) and pine forests with Aleppo Pine (Pinus halepensis) mainly.

The majority of the nests are located on slopes exposed to south/south-east and are built on side branches of Aleppo Pines.

One more series of Short-toed Eagles photos can be viewed here. They all were made in Gironde /map/. These single fragments of the Eagles’ being were caught by Yves Forget (circa33.free.fr) during his observations in 2005-2007 years.