Cinereous Vulture Nesting Ecology in Ikh Nartyn Chuluu Nature Reserve, Mongolia
2005
Richard P. Reading | Sukh Amgalanbaatar | David Kenny | Banzarjav Dashdemberel
Cinereous vultures (Aegypius monachus) are the largest raptors in Eurasia. Little is known about thespecies, especially in Mongolia. We studied the nesting ecology of cinereous vultures in Ikh NartynChuluu Nature Reserve, Dornogobi Aimag. To assess reproductive success, we located active nests andperiodically checked to determine if they remained active. We measured nest sizes and, periodically,nestling sizes and weights. We located 42 active cinereous vulture nests (27 on rocks and 15 on trees) in2003 and 19 nests (14 on rocks and 5 on trees) in 2004. Mean volume of active nests was 3.92 ± 0.39 m3(n = 36). Most nests failed prior to egg hatching, but after hatching nesting success rates increaseddramatically. Following hatching, cinereous vulture chicks grew linearly until leveling off just prior tofledging. We generated growth curves for chicks that allowed us to determine the average size of chickson specific dates. Improving the prospects for successful cinereous vulture conservation likely requiresa better understanding of nesting ecology. As such, we plan to improve the quality of our data by monitoringnests more intensively to determine incubation and fledging lengths, as well as causes of nest failures.
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