and Platalea leucorodia) nesting at Doñana during 1984-2010 were analysed. The aim of the study was to assess the size and trends of populations and to analyse their environmental and anthropogenic determinants. We used the TRIM programme to test for long-term trends, and Generalised Additive Models to assess the effect of local rainfall, the surface area of ricefields surrounding Doñana and rainfall in the Sahel on breeding population size. All species showed positive population trends, mainly from 1996 onwards. The number of active colonies increased over time, and up to 17,297 nests from the nine studied species were recorded in one year (2010). Low precipitation (< 500 mm) in the previous autumn and winter was associated with reductions in the numbers of breeders, since rainfall determines the flooding extent in the natural marshes of Doñana. The area of ricefields positively influenced the breeding numbers of five species. Only four of these species are considered to be increasing in Europe and increases in Doñana coincide with management changes that have improved nesting and feeding habitat and reduced human disturbance. In addition to large-scale man-made habitat changes, breeding population sizes for the studied species were strongly influenced by high annual variation in rainfall, typical of Mediterranean habitats, therefore making them likely to be affected by climate change.

Waterbird communities are potential indicators of ecological changes in threatened wetland ecosystems and consequently, a potential object of ecological monitoring programs. Waterbirds often breed in largely inaccessible colonies in flooded habitats, so unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveys provide a robust method for estimating their breeding population size. Counts of breeding pairs might be carried out by manual and automated detection routines. In this study we surveyed the main breeding colony of Glossy ibis (Plegadis falcinellus) at the Doñana National Park. We obtained a high resolution image, in which the number and location of nests were determined manually through visual interpretation by an expert. We also suggest a standardized methodology for nest counts that would be repeatable across time for long-term monitoring censuses, through a supervised classification based primarily on the spectral properties of the image and a subsequent automatic size and form based count. Although manual and automatic count were largely similar in the total number of nests, accuracy between both methodologies was only 46.37%, with higher variability in shallow areas free of emergent vegetation than in areas dominated by tall macrophytes. We discuss the potential challenges for automatic counts in highly complex images.

The occurrence of classical (polybrominated diphenyl ethers, PBDEs) and emerging FRs (dechloranes, hexabromobenzene (HBB), pentabromoethyl benzene (PBEB) and decabromodiphenyl ethane (DBDPE)) in unborn eggs of 14 different species from Doñana Natural Space and surrounding areas was studied. PBDEs, Dec-602, Dec-603 and DP were detected in all the species, whereas HBB, PBEB, DBDPE and Dec-604 were not detected in any sample. ΣPBDE and ΣDechlorane levels ranged from 1.40 to 90.7, and from 0.77 to 260 ng/g lw, respectively. BDE-209 was the most abundant BDE congener in almost all the species, whereas Dec-602 was the predominant among dechloranes. In general, levels of PBDEs and dechloranes were similar and even higher for dechloranes, probably indicating the increasing use of dechloranes as a result of legal restrictions on PBDEs. In both cases, the most contaminated specie was the white stork. Using stable isotope characterization, differences among species and possible biomagnification processes were also evaluated. PBDE levels increased as the trophic position increased, showing biomagnification capacity. The same behavior was observed for Dec-602 and Dec-603; however, DP levels were not linearly correlated with trophic level. These results show that more attention should be given to emerging FRs such as dechloranes since they show similar environmental behavior as PBDEs.

With 3 figures in the text)The growth of black kites Milvus migrans was studied , 1982. Fifteen variables were submitted to a principal component analysis in order to characterize the growth pattern of the young. In general, in the nestlings that fledged, rapid weight gain corresponded to rapid growth of the tarsus and feathers. For nestlings that starved, tarsus growth took priority over weight gain. Within the same brood, the lasthatched sibling grew more slowly than its older sibling and the differences between them increased in proportion to the hatching asynchrony. Brood size did not affect growth as clearly as hatching order and hatching asynchrony. Increased rainfall and lower maximum temperature, factors that seem to make the search for food more difficult, had negative effects on the youngest sibling in a multiple brood and on single nestlings. The only environmental variable that had an effect on all of the nestlings was the hatching date.

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