Bird ringing datasets constitute possibly the largest source of temporal and spatial information on vertebrate taxa available on the globe. Initially, the method was invented to understand avian migration patterns. However, data deriving from bird ringing has been used in an array of other disciplines including population monitoring, changes in demography, conservation management and to study the effects of climate change to name a few. Despite the widespread usage and importance, there are no guidelines available specifically describing the practice of data management, preparation and analyses of ringing datasets. Here, we present the first of a series of comprehensive tutorials that may help fill this gap. We describe in detail and through a real-life example the intricacies of data cleaning and how to create a data table ready for analyses from raw ringing data in the R software environment. Moreover, we created and present here the R package; ringR, designed to carry out various specific tasks and plots related to bird ringing data. Most methods described here can also be applied to a wide range of capture-recapture type data based on individual marking, regardless to taxa or research question.

The present paper acts as an introduction to a series that will describe the exploratory analyses of migration phenology and morphometrics of the most common passerine species at the Ócsa Bird Ringing Station. This station is situated in the Ócsa Landscape Protection Area that belongs to the Duna-Ipoly National Park, Hungary. The area is somewhat cooler and more humid than the surrounding agricultural fields and tree plantations, covered by a mosaic of diverse hygrophilous vegetation patches. Bird trapping is mostly based on Japanese mist-net lines crossing different plant communities. During the period of 1984-2015, a total of 422,862 birds were trapped and ringed here, while 202,739 local, 1,235 within country, and 443 foreign recaptures were also recorded. Each bird is characterized by the following data: location and time of capture, species, age, sex, scores of fat, pectoral muscle, wing tip abrasion, and moult, length of wing, 3 rd primary, and tail, and body mass. After subjected to a rigorous quality check, digital data are deposited in the archive of the Hungarian Bird Ringing Centre, and the EURING data base. From time to time, other research projects also utilized the accessibility of wild birds captured here, thus collection of blood samples, ecto-and endoparasites was carried out at the station. The relatively long time span, large number of species and individuals, and the readily available environmental (weather, vegetation, etc.) data makes the avian data collected here a suitable base for studies of various disciplines like capture methodology, habitat preferences,breeding, migration, and wintering, effects of weather and climate change, and epidemiology of viruses and parasites.Összefoglalás Jelen cikk egy olyan cikksorozat bevezető része, amelyben egy közép-magyarországi gyűrűzőállomáson -Ócsai Madárvártán -leggyakrabban előforduló énekesmadarak vonulás időzítésének és testméreteinek exploratív elemzéseit közöljük. A gyűrűző állomás a Duna-Ipoly Nemzeti Parkhoz tartozó Ócsai Tájvédelmi Körzetben található. A terület egy jégkorszaki maradványláp, mozaikos vegetációval. A madarak befogása a területre jellemző különböző növénytársulásokban, döntő többségben japán típusú függönyhálókkal történik. Az 1984-2015 között zajló munka során 422 862 madarat fogtunk, gyűrűztünk, 202 739 saját, 1235 hazai és 443 külföldi vonatkozású visszafogásunk volt. A befogott madarakról a következő adatokat vettük fel: a madarak befogási helye 12 méteres pontossággal, ideje 1 órás pontossággal, faja, kora, ivara, zsír-, izom-, vedlés-és kopás kódja, szárny-, 3. evező-, és farokhossza 1 mm-es pontossággal, testtömege 0,1 g pontossággal, teljes vedlést végző madárnál az evezőés faroktollaknál egyenként 0-5-ös skálán. Az adatok -ellenőrzés után -a Magyar Madárgyűrűzési Központba és az EURING adatbázisba kerülnek. A standard adatfelvételen túl -időközönként és bizonyos fajoknál -egyéb vizsgálatok is történnek, pl. ekto, és endoparazita gyűjtés, vérminta gyűjtés stb. A viszonylag hosszú időintervallum, a nagy fajszám és fajo...

Shortage of breeding sites is an important limiting factor of bird populations. Artificial breeding platforms, nest-boxes or man-made twig nests often present solutions with remarkable results, however long-term sustainability of these populations remains to be resolved. Furthermore, the question whether the inference of results of studies conducted on birds breeding in artificial breeding sites can be generalized to other populations, still remains open. Here we present the history, and the results of a 20 year old (1995-2015) nest-box programme initiated to increase potential breeding possibilities of Red-footed Falcons in an area, where nest-site shortage was a severe limiting factor. We show how various other species (Jackdaws, Kestrels and Long-eared Owls) have utilized these resources, and present descriptive statistics on their reproductive performance. Analysing the data of a total of 1432 breeding attempts, we show that Red-footed Falcons have similar clutch sizes, and nesting success (i.e. ratio of nests with at least on fledgling), however fledging success (ratio of the number of eggs/fledged nestlings) was different in artificial nest-boxes. When we excluded closed box types from artificial nests, this difference was not apparent. In case of Kestrels (n=1626 breeding attempts) clutch size was significantly higher in artificial nests, while we found no difference in fledging or nesting success. When only comparing open boxes to natural nests, the difference in clutch size was no longer significant. We also analysed the effect of nest box design on reproductive parameters of the two species using regression trees. Inter annual effects were the most important in shaping clutch size and fledging rate of both falcon species, however we also found nest-box design effects, but only in Red-footed Falcons. In years when mean clutch size was high, these birds had lower clutch size in an older, darker nest-box type compared to an alternative design, and to open boxes. However, fledging rate in the same years was lower for both open boxes and older nest-boxes. We conclude that artificial colonies are an important and successful tool in Red-footed Falcon conservation, and that the breeding parameters measured in artificial colonies depend on nest-box design. We present correlative evidence that closed boxes have a significant positive species specific effect on reproduction, probably due to their protection against weather. We also show that birds may have a preference for a certain nest-box design, and that the breeding success in the less favoured box type may be similar to that in open nests. We recommend that future studies incorporate nest-type and nest-box design effects in all comparisons made on reproductive performance in case of Red-footed Falcons and Kestrels.

The Red-footed Falcon is a facultatively colonial species that exploits rookeries, artificial nest-box colonies and solitary corvid nests for breeding. Moreover, the remain gregarious in the post breeding period using communal roost sites prior to migration. We developed and implemented a survey protocol to allow to precisely estimate the number of breeding pairs in all three breeding types and to assess large scale spatio-temporal changes in roost site usage. Our results show that the lowest number of breeding pairs (558) was in 2006. However, in 2014 the number of pairs showed a two fold increase, mainly due to a large scale nest-box programme implemented in the past decade. We identified a total of 105 roost sites throughout the country. The number of birds peaked in the second week of September in the past 10 years. We formulate a recommendation to maintain population monitoring efficiency by reducing the frequency of full surveys to 5 years and using designated study areas to control for temporal trends in between.