Breeding Status of Ospreys in Egypt (Red Sea) from 2012 to 2018

Breeding status of Red Sea Ospreys Pandion h haliatus in Egypt from 2012 to 2018

Mohamed I Habib

Egypt located at the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia by a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula.

 In Egypt the Ospreys Pandion l.haliaetus breeds and are resident along the Red Sea coast on islands. Scarce passage migrants and winter visitors between early September and early May.  A new series of Osprey surveys started in early June 2012 and ended in July 2018.  The main goal was to survey the local resident breeding Ospreys Pandion haliaetus haliaetus and also visited the three wintering & Stop over areas at Malaha , Aswan and Lake Nasser.

 -23 active nests were recently used

(Sherif Baha El Din, Mostafa

Saleh 1982)

 - total 39 nests were counted during the survey (J.Frazier 1982)

 - 38 breeding pairs (nests)

(M. Jennings, P.Heathcote , D.Parr ,S.Baha El

Din 1985 ).

 -19 nests counted during the survey (Richard Hoath, Dr Derek Russell, Rafik Khalil and Dina Khalil1994).

 - Estimating 85-100 pairs (Andrew Grieve, Linda B. Millington 1999)

ID 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Date Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jan 2013 Jun 2015 Aug 2015 Jan 2013 Aug 2014 Aug 2015 Nov 2017 Feb 2017 Feb 2018 Feb 2018

Location Abu Mingar (Island) Um Gawish El Kabir (Island) Marina Abu tiq (floating raft) Abu Kirsh (Island) Ashrafi Island (Island) Qeisum South (Island) Qeisum North Island) Um El Heimat (Island) Wadi El Gemal (Island) El Sheikh (Island) Mahabis (Island) Sayal (Island) Mangrove Lahmi Zabargad Resort Nabaq mangrove/Mari Shruder wreck Hartway bay Zabargad Island Rocky Island Shekh Malek paylon Shawareet Island Big Gifton Island Small Gifton Island

Lat. Long.

27°13'03'' 33°53'02'' 27°09'14'' 33°51'00'' 27°44'57'' 33°41'39'' 27°45'04'' 33°42'15''

24°39'35'' 35°40'11'' 24°19'25'' 35°23'37'' 24°19'06'' 35°22'58''

Total

Numberofnests Active Non-active 2 1 2 1 1 0 1 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 1 3 0 1 0 2 0 4 0 1 0 4 0 2 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 2 0 2 1 2 2 39 5

•

Ospreys are territorial and pairs start courtships and nest building from the first week of November in south of Egypt to first week of December in north of Egypt.

•

Nests are made from twigs of dry bushes and drifted fishermen material .

•

Nests placed mostly on sand dunes, fishermen huts, Beacon

&floating raft, roof of diving center and in mangrove trees & also communication pylon.

• Normally nest is used in successive years by the same pair.

•

They start egg laying from the middle of December in the south of Egypt to the last week of January in north of Egypt.

• Hatching from middle of Jan to end of Feb •

Fledgling occur from last week of April to end of May.

•

The only case of polyandry in the area have been documented at El

Sheikh Island at Qalaan archipelago

Breeding Seasons

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

Apr

Nest Building Mating Laying Hatching Fledgling

Breeding Phenology of Osprey in Egypt from 2013 till 2016

May

Jun

• In Red Sea Osprey only Hunting on the wing never on perch .

• At the Red Sea, Osprey’s diet consists entirely of fish and their mainly forage at reef flats and reef edges, feeding chicks with preferred fish species as e.g. Parrot fish, Trumpet fish, Sohal fish, Surgeon fish and Butterfly fish.

Young birds fledge the nest at 7-8 weeks of age, Fledgling occur from beginning of April to end of May. Adults continue to feed young around the area of the nest for few weeks while young ospreys learn flying and hunting skills.

Siblings stay most of the time close to each other especially after leaving the nest waiting for parents bring fresh fish.

Morphology

Courtesy Ülo Väli & Urmas Sellis 2015

Number of Osprey at Stopover

10

5

1 El Malaha Port Said

North of High Dame

Lake Nasser

The main threats to the breeding population are: •

Human disturbance :on the Red Sea islands, For example, as a result of building tourist cafeteria on the southern part of Big Gifton, birds were forced to build new nests on the northern side of the island. More disturbance occurs when fishermen land during the breeding seasons and collect eggs and kite surfing/safari boat trips staying over night . Fisher men burning nest material in winter for heating purposes .

•

Predation :-

•

Oil pollution :-

Ospreys in Egypt mostly breed on remote offshore islands, probably to avoid predation by Red Foxes Vulpes vulpes during evenings (M.Habib 2017) e.g. oil spill from oil rigs and bilge water from tourist boats. Oil spills can have devastating effects on Ospreys and other waterbirds breeding on the islands as the flight and swim ability is highly affected by oil in the feather plumage.

Discussion • During our survey we find Osprey nesting on almost every Islands , at the Red Sea Coast .

• They nest at top of mangrove trees and communication pylon & and DC building roof .

• The highest concentration of nests found at Nabaq mangrove & at Mangrove of Lahmi bay with 4 nests on each site.

• The probable reason is mangrove has high productivity of Red Sea Fishes than fringing reefs around islands .As Breeding success of Ospreys has repeatedly been found to be linked to food availability (Poole, A.F. 1989).

250

number of nests

200

150

100

50

number of nests

0 1982

1982

1985

1989

1994

1999

2012 to 2018

The Egyptian breeding population of 150–200 pairs of Ospreys is based on estimates from incomplete counts made early this century, the Red Sea population seems to be stable (Goodman & Meininger 1989)

• But it is not clear if the survey in 1989were conducted during the winter season and, hence, the number of birds counted included wintering birds. • If the numbers are correct there is a seriously decline in the number of breeding pairs of Ospreys in the Red Sea region of Egypt.

RECOMMENDATIONS

•Further artificial nests projects at Red Sea resorts is highly recommended to replace the lost nests and increase the Egyptian population to the previous level.

•Future study with color rings to look at individual aspect, to save the osprey of the area and to study post fledgling dispersal movement .

• DNA study is needed to establish if the Red Sea population may warrant separate subspecific status ( For sure The morphological differences are not always associated to genetic differences ).