Insights into the migration of the European Roller from ring recoveries

Finch, Tom, Dunning, Jamie, Kiss, Orsolya, Račinskis, Edmunds, Schwartz, Timothée, Sniauksta, Laimonas, Szekeres, Otto, Tokody, Bela, Franco, Aldina and Butler, Simon (2017) Insights into the migration of the European Roller from ring recoveries. Journal of Ornithology, 158 (1). 83–90. ISSN 0021-8375

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Abstract

Here we present the first international analysis of ring recovery data in the European Roller - a long distance migrant of conservation concern - comprising 58 records of Rollers ringed during the breeding season and recovered during the non-breeding season. Most records come from eastern Europe, half are of juveniles and over three quarters are of dead birds. Thus, ring recoveries provide migration data for cohorts of Rollers - juveniles and unsuccessful migrants - for which no information currently exists, complementing recent tracking studies. Qualitatively, our results are consistent with direct tracking studies, illustrating a broad-front migration across the Mediterranean basin in autumn and the use of the Arabian Peninsula by Rollers from eastern populations in spring. Autumn movements were, on average, in a more southerly direction for juveniles than adults, which were more easterly. After the exclusion of outliers, juvenile movements were also more variable. This is consistent with juveniles following a naïve vector-based orientation program, and perhaps explains the 'moderate' migratory connectivity previously described for the Roller. The recovery age ratio was juvenile-biased in autumn but adult-biased in spring. Although this difference was not significant, it points towards a higher non-breeding season mortality of juveniles than adults. We also provide the first (qualitative) analysis of causes of non-breeding season mortality, highlighting the high prevalence of shooting.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Finch, T., Dunning, J., Kiss, O. et al. J Ornithol (2017) 158: 83. doi:10.1007/s10336-016-1374-y © The Author(s) 2016 Open Access: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Environmental Biology
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:08
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2025 01:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/59850
DOI:	10.1007/s10336-016-1374-y

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