Common BuzzardsButeo buteoWintering in Eastern Romania: Habitat Use and Climatic Factors Affecting their Abundance

Common Buzzards wintering strategies as an effect of weather conditions and geographic barriers

“…This difference could be related to their wintering movements, and probably in this month in Romania, there is an influx of individuals from more northern territories, individuals which are spreading after into other regions. December was also found the best wintering month, in term of Common Buzzard numbers, for Eastern Romania by other studies (Baltag et al., 2013, 2018). In February, Common Buzzard starts already migrating back to their nesting areas, leaving the wintering quarters.…”

“…This difference is explained mostly by the fact that Moldova region is more exposed to cold air outbreaks associated with negative AO due to the lack of mountain barrier in the east (Apostol & Sfîcă, 2013; Croitoru et al., 2018). The influence of AO on Common Buzzard wintering population in Moldova has been demonstrated in another study (Baltag et al., 2013, 2018). The reconfirmation of AO influence is very important especially because the monitoring methods used in these two studies are different.…”

“…This difference is explained mostly by the fact that Moldova region is more exposed to cold air outbreaks associated with negative AO due to the lack of mountain barrier in the east (Apostol & Sfîcă, 2013;Croitoru et al, 2018). The influence of AO on Common Buzzard wintering population in Moldova has been demonstrated in another study (Baltag et al, 2013(Baltag et al, , 2018 We ranked models using Akaike's information criterion with correction for finite samples (AIC), using "MuMIn" package for R Statistical Software. For abbreviations, please refer Table 1.…”

“…Different species respond in a specific manner to the climatic variables. Some species could start the migration being pressed by the local climatic factors (Askeyev et al., 2018), but others are influenced by large‐scale mechanisms related to atmospheric circulation (Baltag et al., 2018). Often, these large‐scale indices seem to be valuable predictors of ecological processes than local climate (Hallett et al., 2004).…”

“…Up to now, several studies have identified among these factors—the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) (Hubálek & Capek, 2008; Stervander et al., 2008), Arctic Oscillations (AO) (Baltag et al., 2018), or local temperature (Carrascal et al., 2016)—as having clear influence on different populations. The NAO was found to influence mostly Western and Northwestern European bird population (Jonzén et al., 2002), while AO was identified only for Eastern or central‐eastern European as a driver of bird populations (Baltag, 2013; Baltag et al., 2018). The local temperature could influence the period length which they spend in a region or local movements in different habitats (Mazumdar et al., 2017).…”