Part 11: Ageing and sexing the Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos

Meissner, Włodzimierz; Hollland, Philip; Cofta, Tomasz

doi:10.18194/ws.00009

Cited by 4 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 0 publications

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“…Birds were mist-netted, during the night, at roosting sites. Before fitting the transmitter, all birds were ringed and their body mass (to the nearest g), wing length (maximum chord, to the nearest mm), and age (1st year–juvenile, 2nd year, adult 29 , 30 ) were recorded. Three different models of transmitters were used in this study.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low migratory connectivity and similar migratory strategies in a shorebird with contrasting wintering population trends in Europe and West Africa

Catry,

Correia,

Gutiérrez

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Migratory shorebird populations are declining worldwide, showing an apparent inability to respond to the interplaying challenges emerging along their flyways. Within the East Atlantic Flyway, non-breeding populations show moderate to strong declines in Sub-Saharan Africa, contrasting with stable or increasing trends in Europe. Local factors are insufficient to explain the opposite tendencies and, therefore, investigating migratory strategies and connectivity of these populations may help identifying the drivers of their demography. We followed the migratory journeys of 20 grey plovers (Pluvialis squatarola) from their wintering grounds in Guinea-Bissau (West Africa), Portugal and France (Europe) using tracking devices. Grey plovers wintering in Africa and Europe were found to share breeding grounds at European Russia and Western Siberia, revealing low migratory connectivity in the Eastern Atlantic population. All individuals followed a “skipping” migratory strategy, flying mostly mid-distance bouts, and using an unexpected large network of stopover sites to re-fuel usually for short periods. We identified 66 different stopover sites along the West African, European and Russian/Siberian coasts. All birds stopped at the Wadden Sea in both migratory periods, highlighting the importance of this region and the risk for a potential bottleneck. Low migratory connectivity and similar migratory strategies shared by grey plovers wintering in Europe and West Africa do not support their contrasting population trends.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low migratory connectivity and similar migratory strategies in a shorebird with contrasting wintering population trends in Europe and West Africa

Catry,

Correia,

Gutiérrez

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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“…Birds were caught in walk-in traps (Busse & Meissner 2015) at four ringing sites in Poland (Figure 1) and aged according to plumage characteristics (Meissner et al 2015). Only adult birds (older than 1 year) were analysed.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is known that adult birds precede juveniles when moving towards the wintering grounds, but migration dates of both age classes overlap to a great extent (Meissner 1996;Balmori 2003). However, there are no studies that examined possible differences in migration timing of adult males and females, because the common sandpiper is a monomorphic species and it is impossible to recognise the sex of the birds by their plumage characteristics (Meissner et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sex-related differences in autumn migration timing of adult common sandpipersActitis hypoleucos(Linnaeus, 1758) (Charadriiformes: Scolopacidae)

Meissner

Krupa

2017

The European Zoological Journal

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In the common sandpiper both sexes do not participate equally in brood rearing. The attendance of females progressively declines and by the third week after hatching, most of them leave their broods. To check if this unequal parental care results in different migration phenology of males and females, adult common sandpipers were caught at four ringing sites in Poland during their autumn migration and were sexed using a discriminant equation. The median date of female migration was 6 days earlier than that of males. In the first days of July, males comprised only 22% of common sandpipers caught, while later their percent share increased gradually and in August reached up to 80% of captured birds. However, birds of both sexes were present among migrants during the whole migration period and migration period of both sexes overlapped to a great extent. Most probably birds migrating through the study area came from a vast breeding area, where the period of egg laying differs between its northernmost and southernmost parts by at least 1 month.

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