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. 2018;12(3):313-325.
doi: 10.1007/s41742-018-0093-z. Epub 2018 May 14.

Identification of Griffon Vulture's Flight Types Using High-Resolution Tracking Data

Sam Khosravifard  1 , Valentijn Venus  1 , Andrew K Skidmore  1 , Willem Bouten  2 , Antonio R Muñoz  3 , Albertus G Toxopeus  1
Affiliations

Identification of Griffon Vulture's Flight Types Using High-Resolution Tracking Data

Sam Khosravifard et al. Int J Environ Res. 2018.

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.

Keywords: Animal movement; Animal tracking; Collision; Gliding; Linear soaring; Slope soaring; Spain; Spiral gliding; Telemetry; Wind turbine.

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Conflict of interest statement

All data generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.The authors declare that they have no competing interests.The experimental procedures of this study, including bird trapping and GPS tagging, were approved by the Consejería de Medio Ambiente of the Junta de Andalucía, who provided permissions for this research through the licence to capture and mark raptors to Antonio-Román Muñoz (Regional Licence: 65029 Consejería de Agricultura, Pesca y Medio Ambiente, Junta de Andalucía; National Licence 650038, Ministerio de Agricultura, Alimentation y Medio Ambiente).

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The study area in province of Cádiz, south Spain: the grey polygon (bottom) is the location of colony site and the asterisk symbols show the location of observers. The observers’ angle of view is shown in solid and dashed line
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Thematic illustration of the Griffon vulture’s different flight patterns a thermal soaring, b spiral gliding, c linear soaring, d gliding, e slope soaring
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Study workflow of the Griffon vulture’s flight patterns and evaluation of the classification
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Variation and frequency of instant speed in the dataset: a instantaneous speed > 4 m/s (red dashed line) is the main proxy to identify flying mode, and b frequency of flying and static modes in the dataset
Fig. 5
Fig. 5
a Scheme of the Griffon vulture’s flight patterns in three dimensions, and b in two dimensions segregated using the concept of motion in physics. c Scheme of the Griffon vulture’s flight patterns in three dimensions, and d its relative radius of curvature (red line) and altitude (green line) during the flight
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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