Determining the links between breeding populations and the pressures, threats and conditions they experience presents a challenge for the conservation of migratory birds which can use multiple sites separated by hundreds to thousands of kilometres. Furthermore, migratory connectivity – the connections made by migrating individuals between networks of breeding and non‐breeding sites – has important implications for population dynamics. The Whinchat Saxicola rubetra is declining across its range, and tracking data from a single African non‐breeding site implies high migratory spread. We used geolocators to describe the migration routes and non‐breeding areas of 20 Whinchats from three British breeding populations. As expected, migratory spread was high, with birds from the three populations overlapping across a wide area of West Africa. On average, in non‐breeding areas, British breeding Whinchats were located 652 km apart from one another, with some likely to share non‐breeding areas with individuals from breeding populations as far east as Russia. Four males made a direct non‐breeding season movement to a second, more westerly, non‐breeding location in January. Autumn migration was through Iberia and around the western edge of the Sahara Desert, whereas spring migration was more direct, indicating an anticlockwise loop migration. Weak migratory connectivity implies that Whinchat populations are somewhat buffered against local changes in non‐breeding conditions. If non‐breeding season processes have played a role in the species’ decline, then large‐scale drivers are likely to be the cause, although processes operating on migration, or interactions between breeding and non‐breeding processes, cannot be ruled out.

Four adult male Asian Houbara Bustards Chlamydotis macqueenii were caught on their breeding grounds in the Gobi Desert of China and tracked by satellite from July 2000 for from 5 months to > 3.5 years. Wintering areas were identified for two individuals, one on the Turkmenistan/Uzbekistan border in the Amur‐Darya valley, the second at the Iran/Turkmenistan border. One individual used the same wintering and breeding areas for three consecutive years. Overall departure dates from breeding grounds ranged from 29 September to 14 October, with arrival on wintering quarters from 23 October to 7 November. Birds left their wintering grounds between 2 and 21 March and reached their breeding areas between 11 and 21 April. The mean overall migration distance was 3935 km (sd = ± 229, n = 9). Houbara Bustards mainly followed steppe areas to migrate avoiding the highest elevations of the Himalayan massif and travelling 267 km/day on average. Pre‐breeding migration lasted longer than post‐breeding and included more and longer stopovers. The Taukum Desert and Jungar Basin are critical areas for migration of eastern Houbara populations. Breeding range, used for 5.5 months, was 274 km2 (sd = ± 53, n = 4), whereas wintering range, used for around 4 months a year, was 76 km2 (sd = ± 22, n = 3). Range use pattern appeared similar for Asian Houbara released in central Saudi Arabia, but differed from the African Houbara Bustard. More investigations are required to determine the effects of food availability and meteorological conditions on the migration pattern and on the use of stopovers by Asian Houbara Bustards.

SummaryA sharp decline in the numbers of Asian Houbara Bustard Chlamydotis macqueenii towards the end of the 20 th century raised concerns about the conservation status of this species. Yet due to its large breeding range in the remote steppes and deserts of Central Asia and to its cryptic behaviour, it has been difficult to obtain enough comparable data to make reliable estimates of population trends. Here, we present the results of 10 years of extensive biannual surveys throughout southern Kazakhstan, considered to host the majority of the breeding birds in Asia, and we discuss trends in the Kazakh populations for the first decade of this century. The breeding Houbara population has generally declined over the greater part of Kazakhstan between 2000 and 2009 but with important regional differences. A steep decline was observed in north-east Caspian and Karakum, and a sharp drop followed by a stabilisation occurred in Kyzylkum. Over the same period, estimated densities were stable or increased in the area surrounding Lake Balkash, and increased in the Betpak-Dala region of central Kazakhstan. Autumn surveys showed more variability and revealed little decline overall. It was also clear that Betpak-Dala and Balkash regions hosted the largest populations. Our findings suggest that it is a complex undertaking to assign a level of vulnerability for this species as a whole. Highly variable population trends between regions indicate that threats and pressures are to a considerable extent region-specific, and that conservation measures need to be adjusted locally.

We studied a population of Nubian ibex Capra ibex nubiana in the eastern extreme\ud of its range, the hyper-arid central desert of the Sultanate of Oman. Long-term\ud data were collected from January 1983 to December 1997 by direct observation, as\ud well as VHF telemetry on 12 animals (eight from 1987 to 1990; four from 1994 to\ud 1996). We recorded 884 sightings: 40.4% of single animals and 59.6% of groups.\ud Although no significant monthly variation of group size (Jarman’s Typical Group\ud Size) was found, there were distinct peaks in March (4.0 ind. group1) and\ud September (5.1 ind. group1). Groups of males and females formed especially in\ud March and November, and female–kid groups in February and July–August. Our\ud data may suggest two mating periods: the first one in autumn (similar to the rut of\ud ibex in temperate mountain areas), with kids born in spring/early summer, after\ud winter–spring rainfall, and the second one in spring, with kids born in late\ud summer/autumn, before winter–spring rainfalls. We suggest that the second\ud rutting period may have evolved as a micro-evolutionary process, with the local\ud population adapting to hyper-arid environment constraints. The spring mating\ud season may favour only females in prime conditions, who can afford a pregnancy\ud in the local severe summers and will deliver kids when plant greening begins, in the\ud autumn, whereas the autumn (original) mating season may be afforded by any\ud female, but kids will be born in an unfavourable period, before the summer\ud drought

Shrews(Soricidae, Mammalia) of the National Park Souss-Massa, Morocco. -With 420 trap-nights we sampled shrews in different habitats of the Souss-Massa National Park. Crocidura viaria (n=11) was found in 5 habitats (cultivated land, wetland, beach dunes with Chenopodia, sand dunes with patchy vegetation and also in the Euphorbia association). No shrews were captured in Eucalyptus forest with undergrowth. Southward from Essaouira, C. viaria is obviously the most frequent species in dense or patchy lowland vegetation. Two other species (C. whitakeri and C. tarfayaensis) which occur in sympatry in the Agadir region were not captured. They live probably not in syntopy with C. viaria and their ecological requirements remain to be studied.