Abstract
Recent technological development has made it possible to pinpoint precise locations of small migratory songbirds throughout their annual cycle, providing the opportunity for improving our understanding of year-round habitat use. Here, we use GPS loggers to map the exact location and habitat use at stationary sites throughout the annual cycle of a long-distance migratory songbird, the Red-backed Shrike Lanius collurio. Although the main staging sites confirmed previous findings from light-level geolocation studies, one individual wintered in south-western Chad, an area with only a few historical records of this species. This study highlights opportunities for answering new questions and gaining more knowledge using fine-scale tracking of migratory songbirds.
Zusammenfassung
Ganzjahres-GPS Tracking deckte ein bisher unbekanntes Wintergebiet einer langstreckenziehenden Singvogelart auf
Die derzeitigen technologischen Entwicklungen haben es ermöglicht, kleine ziehende Singvogelarten im Verlauf ihres Jahreszyklus präzise lokalisieren zu können. Dies eröffnet die Möglichkeit eines verbesserten Verständnisses zur ganzjährigen Habitatwahl dieser Arten. In der vorliegenden Studie nutzten wir GPS-Logger für die exakte Lokalisierung und Habitatwahl von Neuntötern Lanius collurio, einer langstreckenziehenden Singvogelart in den im Jahresverlauf genutzten Gebieten. Obwohl die Hauptrastgebiete dieser Art bereits durch frühere Ergebnisse aus sogenannten Hell-Dunkel-Geolokationsstudien bestätigt wurden, überwinterte ein Individuum im südwestlichen Tschad, in einem Gebiet mit nur einzelnen historischen Nachweisen dieser Art. Die Studie erlangt weitere Kenntnisse zur ganzjährigen Habitatwahl ziehender Singvögel durch detaillierte Ortungsmethoden und stellt die Möglichkeiten zur Beantwortung neuer Fragen heraus.
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Acknowledgements
We thank two anonymous reviewers for providing useful comments improving this paper; We thank P. Ekberg, T.E. Ortvad, M. Willemoes and R. van Wijk for field assistance; We acknowledge Poul Tholstrups Fond, Aage V Jensen Naturfond as well as the Danish National Research Foundation for supporting the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate (Grant no. DNRF96). Capture and sampling methods were approved by the Copenhagen Bird Ringing Center with permission from the Danish Nature Agency (J.nr. SN 302-009).
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Communicated by N. Chernetsov.
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Pedersen, L., Thorup, K. & Tøttrup, A.P. Annual GPS tracking reveals unexpected wintering area in a long-distance migratory songbird. J Ornithol 160, 265–270 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-018-1610-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-018-1610-8