Distribution of osprey Pandion haliaetus (Linnaeus, 1758) in the Altai Krai

In recent years, the number of observing the osprey (Pandion haliaetus (Linnaeus, 1758)) in the Altai Krai (Siberia, Russian Federation) has increased slightly. We suppose this fact is due not to an increase in the number of these rare birds in the region, but to an increase in the number of interested observers and amateur photographers. The appearance of such Internet resources as the Web GIS “Red Book of Altai Krai”, the Web GIS “Feathered Predators of the World”, “Siberian Birdwatching Community” and others makes it easy to publish the results of their observations, confirmed by photos, on the Internet, which makes them accessible to a wide audience. Most of the ospreys observed in the region are most likely migratory, stray, or flying single birds. However, regular recording of ospreys during the breeding time on a pond along the river Setovochka between the mountains of Babyrgan and Gladkaya on the border of the Soviet and Altai areas in 1980-2000 allows a high degree of probability to suggest nesting of this bird here.


Introduction
The distribution area of the osprey Pandion haliaetus (Linnaeus, 1758) covers almost the entire territory of Russia except for the tundra and part of the forest-tundra (Kuchin, 2004). Its breeding sites are usually associated with the coasts of large reservoirs and rivers with clean and clear water (Popov, 2017(Popov, , 2018. In the Altai Krai, the osprey is characterized as a threatened species, and there is currently no reliable information on its nesting in this region (Plotnikov, 2016). Overall, in southern Siberia, the number of ospreys is declining (Mitrofanov, 2016). The birds stopped nesting in most of the intensively developed territories of Russia (Kassal, 2019). It is listed in the Red Books of the Russian Federation (2001), Altai Krai (2016), and Altai Republic (2017), Kemerovo (2012), and Novosibirsk (2018) regions, and other regions within its habitat. Over the past decades, information about observing osprey in the Altai Krai is extremely scarce (Plotnikov, 2016). Therefore, the cited observations are of considerable interest.

Fig. 1. Altai Krai map
Ukrainian Journal of Ecology, 10(6), 2020 We used generally accepted methods and their modifications (Bibby et al., 1998;Karyakin, 2004;Vazhov, 2012). We noted osprey in the course of studying the distribution and abundance of birds of prey in the Altai Krai, both on foot and on automobile routes (Fig.1). In order to get an idea of the distribution of osprey in Altai Krai, an analysis of available sources, including materials from the Red Book of Altai Krai (2016), data from the Web-GIS "Red Book of Altai Krai" (http://altayredbook.wildlifemonitoring.ru), Web-GIS "Feathered Predators of the World" (http://raptors.wildlifemonitoring.ru), and the Birds of Siberia site (http://sibirds.ru).

Results
At the beginning of the last century, the osprey was observed near Biysk, in the upper reaches of the Aley, and in the forests near the river Ob territory at breeding time ( Fig.2 for details). In the 1960-1980s, it nested on the territory of the Ob forest floodplain and was characterized as a very rare species observed in the patches of trees and ribbon-like pine forests. The breeding osprey was registered on the lake Utkul on May 15, 1971 osprey and was also found in the Ob Nature Reserve along the Kamyshenka River and along local lakes in April 1986 (Kuchin, 2004). The osprey was observed also in the Kornilovsky pine forest, in the Pavlovsky district near the village Kuchuk, in the Topchikhinsky district near the lake Peschanoye and the Kulundinskaya steppe. This bird was also recorded in the upper reaches of the Aley, including the Gilevsky reservoir (Petrov, Irisov, 1995). From the end of September up to October 2012, the species was recorded in the Lifland Wildlife Reserve in the Tretyakovsky District at the mouth of the Aley (Garms, 2015). At the beginning of July 2019, the osprey was observed in the village Tigirek (Agafonova, 2019). A single, most likely the migratory bird was found at the village of Kamyshenka between the Anuy and Peschanaya Rivers on April 11, 2010 (Vazhov, 2012).

Fig. 2. Rivers of Altai Krai
On the territory of the Uglovsky and Mikhailovsky districts, the osprey was observed twice: in the spring of 2006, in the surroundings of Lake Lyapunikha, and in September of the same year near the lake Nagibino (Kotlov, Garms, 2007;Kotlov, Ukrainian Journal of Ecology, 10(6), 2020 2015). At the mouth of the River Kasmala the osprey was recorded on August 6, 2014 (Zarubin, 2014); in the river basin Burla it was met on Lake Topolnoye on May 01, 2018 (Dubikovskij, 2018) and Lake Bolshoye Pustinnoye on May 05, 2019 - (Andreenkov, Andreenkova, 2019). Earlier, the osprey was recorded in the upper reaches of the Chumysh River, where the birds nested at the mouth of this river. In Salair, the osprey was observed in the Alambay basin in the area of the village Tyagun (Petrov, Irisov, 1995;Petrov, 1997). These predators were observed in summer and winter on the channel near the village Bobrovka in Pervomaisky district (Irisova et al., 1999), and at the beginning of October 2019, the osprey was noted in the surroundings of the village Pervomayskoye (Pozhidaeva, 2019). According to O.Ya. Garms (2017), the osprey is included in the list of city birds in the city of Barnaul and its suburbs within the modern administrative Barnaul district as of January 1, 2017. In this territory, the osprey was observed in the summer in the 90s (Nikitin, 1990), and migratory birds were met here almost every year in April and September (Petrov, 1997;Garms, Ebel', 2011;Plotnikov, 2016). In the area of the South Siberian Botanical Garden, I.G. Volgin noted the osprey on April 1, 2008 (Petrov, 2017). In spring and autumn, the osprey was also found migrating in the floodplain of the lower reaches of the Biya and Katun rivers (Irisova et al., 1999;Solov'yov, 2019). We observed the osprey (Fig. 3) in a small pond (approximately 750×400 m) along the River Setovochka between the mountains of Babyrgan and Gladkaya (1008 and 572 m a.s.l., respectively), at the border of the Soviet and Altai administrative areas of Altai Krai on August 16, 2007, andJune 22, 2008. In both cases, it was possible to observe only one hunting bird, therefore, the nesting of osprey in this place seemed highly doubtful (Vazhov, 2012); we considered this was rather a flying single bird. That is why we did not try to discover the nest there. However, we revealed that osprey was regularly observed at this pond in nesting time even before our observations. Professor V.M. Vazhov (personal communication) observed the osprey here every summer during 1983-1994. I.S. Bannikov also surveyed the birds in this habitat several times in the 1980s (V.M. Vazhov, personal communication). These observations suggest that the osprey probably nested here for a long time. Ukrainian Journal of Ecology, 10(6), 2020 On April 18, 2016, schoolchild Yana Pleshkova observed and photographed the osprey (Fig. 4) just 16.5 km southward of this place over the River Katun (Pleshkova, 2016a;2016b). Perhaps, it was a migratory bird, and we do not consider it still nests in this habitat, because osprey usually flies to the nesting sites in Altai in the second decade of April (Mitrofanov, 2008). Recently, we recorded the ospreys in the floodplain of the River Biya near the village Stan-Bekhtemir on April 28, 2018 (Fig. 5, left) and in the Ob floodplain within the Kislukhinsky Wildlife Reserve on September 6, 2019 (Fig. 5, right).

Conclusions
There is little information about observing osprey in the Altai Krai, but in recent years the number of the recording of this rare bird has increased slightly, which is due not to an increase in osprey numbers in the region, but an increase in the number of interested observers and amateur photographers (birdwatchers). The appearance of such Internet resources as WEB-GIS "Red Book of Altai Krai", WEB-GIS "Faunistics", "Siberian Birdwatching Community" and others make it easy to publish the results of their observations, confirmed by photos, on the Internet, which makes them accessible to a wide audience. Most of the ospreys observed in the region are most likely migratory, stray, or flying single birds, but the regular recording of osprey during the nesting time on a pond along the River Setovochka between the mountains Babyrgan and Gladkaya in 1980-2000, allow assuming the species breeding over there with high probability.