Abstract
Being one of the most frequently killed raptors by collision with wind turbines, little is known about the Griffon vulture’s flight strategies and behaviour in a fine scale. In this study, we used high-resolution tracking data to differentiate between the most frequently observed flight types of the Griffon, and evaluated the performance of our proposed approach by an independent observation during a period of 4 weeks of fieldwork. Five passive flight types including three types of soaring and two types of gliding were discriminated using the patterns of measured GPS locations. Of all flight patterns, gliding was classified precisely (precision = 88%), followed by linear and thermal soaring with precision of 83 and 75%, respectively. The overall accuracy of our classification was 70%. Our study contributes a baseline technique using high-resolution tracking data for the classification of flight types, and is one step forward towards the collision management of this species.
Highlights
Flight and foraging behaviour, and migration of the Griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus, Hablizl, 1783) have been well studied (Bildstein et al 2009; Duriez et al 2014, Garcıa-Ripolles et al 2011; Houston 1974)
Little is known about the fine-scale flight and motion capacity of this species, which is on the top list of most frequently killed raptors by collision with wind turbines in southern Spain (Barrios and Rodrıguez 2004)
This paper focuses on five different types of passive flights, namely: thermal soaring, linear soaring, slope soaring, gliding, and spiral gliding
Summary
Flight and foraging behaviour, and migration of the Griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus, Hablizl, 1783) have been well studied (Bildstein et al 2009; Duriez et al 2014, Garcıa-Ripolles et al 2011; Houston 1974) (see ‘‘Appendix’’). Little is known about the fine-scale flight and motion capacity of this species, which is on the top list of most frequently killed raptors by collision with wind turbines in southern Spain (Barrios and Rodrıguez 2004). Flight type plays an important role in collision risk with wind turbines, especially when associated with hunting and foraging strategies of big raptors (Marques et al 2014). The motion capacity of an individual is its ability to move in various ways or modes either by its own locomotion or by externally vectored via physical means (e.g., winds, water flow, etc.) or by other organisms (e.g., wingless flower mites traveling on foraging bees) (Holyoak et al 2008). Soaring and gliding are the two most common types of flight among raptors and have been at the centre of many studies since the first attempt to understand
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