Biology Golden eagles get better at flying over the years

Golden eagles perfect their flying skills as they get older According to a new study, the birds of prey learn to make better use of air currents. Their habitat thus increases more than two thousand-fold within three years.

Apparently, young eagles have to refine even innate behaviors over the course of their lives, the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Sempach wrote in a press release on Monday. The study was published in the journal "eLife".

Golden eagles fly with thermals: they use rising air currents to cover large distances with comparatively little energy. In the study, the researchers showed that the birds restrict their first flights after leaving the parental nest to the vicinity of mountain ridges.

Predictable thermal conditions prevail there. The wind is deflected upwards and the air rises. As they get older, golden eagles then venture into increasingly flatter regions where the thermals are less predictable and more difficult to find.

55 young eagles observed

The results are valuable for conservation efforts, the researchers wrote in the study. They could help to identify areas where human activities could come into conflict with the eagles' natural behavior.

For the study, the researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, the Swiss Ornithological Institute Sempach LU and the University of Vienna fitted 55 young golden eagles with GPS receivers. For up to three years, they recorded the flight routes of the birds from nests in Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Slovenia and Austria.