<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>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.</p></abstract>

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.

Breeding population trends and pre-migration roost site survey of the Red-footed Falcon in Hungary

MME/BirdLife Hungary, Red-footed Falcon Conservation Working Group, 1121 Budapest, Költő utca 21., Hungary

Department of Zoology, Hungarian Natural History Museum, 1088 Budapest, Baross utca 13., Hungary

Ornis Hungarica

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

The Red-footed Falcon is a facultatively colonial species that exploits rookeries, artificial nest-box colonies and solitary corvid nests for breeding....

Breeding population trends and pre-migration roost site survey of the Red-footed Falcon in Hungary

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Page range: 77 - 93

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/orhu-2015-0007

Keywords
communal roost, post-nuptial migration, post-fledging period, aggregation, monitoring

© Peter Palatitz et al.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Breeding population trends and pre-migration roost site survey of the Red-footed Falcon in Hungary

Published Online: Jul 24, 2015

Page range: 77 - 93

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/orhu-2015-0007

Keywordscommunal roost, post-nuptial migration, post-fledging period, aggregation, monitoring

© Peter Palatitz et al.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
communal roost, post-nuptial migration, post-fledging period, aggregation, monitoring