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Lessons from long-term hole-nester studies in a primeval temperate forest

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Abstract

Nonexcavators (secondary hole-nesters) are birds that critically depend on holes for nesting and roosting; the absence of holes renders habitat uninhabitable to them. In man-managed woods, their populations are known to increase with the provision of nest-boxes, suggesting that the birds are limited by shortage of holes and must compete for them. I use 30 years of observations in the last fragments of primeval temperate forest of lowland Europe (Białowieża National Park, eastern Poland) to test these assumptions. They show that, in primeval forest conditions, (1) birds do not face a shortage of holes, (2) competition for nest sites is of minor importance, (3) woodpeckers are not keystone hole providers, and (4) nonexcavated holes provide safer nest sites than excavated holes. The Białowieża results are compared with studies from primeval forests on other continents. I conclude that in primeval forest conditions, hole-nesting nonexcavator birds are not, as a rule, nest-site-limited.

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Acknowledgments

This review is based on the work of more than 80 people who participated in the Białowieża bird studies for various periods of time over three decades. I am very grateful to all of them. It is impossible to name them all here, but I would like to express special words of gratitude to L. Tomiałojć, who initiated the whole program of studying birds under primeval conditions, and to D. Czeszczewik, C. Mitrus P. Rowiński and W. Walankiewicz, whose work substantially added to our current understanding of hole-nester biology under primeval conditions. R. Graszka, J. Fabijański and W. van Manen kindly permitted the use of their photos. I thank K. Martin, co-convener of this symposium, for all of her input into the organization of the symposium and for improving the format of this paper.

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  1. Department of Avian Ecology, Wrocław University, Sienkiewicza 21, 50 335, Wrocław, Poland

    Tomasz Wesołowski

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  1. Tomasz Wesołowski
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Correspondence to Tomasz Wesołowski.

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Communicated by F. Bairlein.

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Wesołowski, T. Lessons from long-term hole-nester studies in a primeval temperate forest. J Ornithol 148 (Suppl 2), 395–405 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-007-0198-1

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