Volumen 25 (2017): Heft 2 (December 2017)

In 2017 the European Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) was voted to be the “bird of the year” in Hungary. This is a partially migrant species; most of the European populations are resident, however, its breeding range extends to East from the Sweden-Poland-Moldova axis towards the Yenisei with some of the populations wintering in Kazakhstan and South of Turkey. The European Goldfinch is classified within the Carduelinae subfamily including approximately a hundred species. Several taxonomic changes were introduced in this group during the last fifteen years, however, we still do not understand much of their origin and evolutionary history. My aim in this paper is to collect existing knowledge on the phylogeny and evolution of the Carduelinae finches and their allies, with a particular focus on the European Goldfinch and its closest relatives. Furthermore, here I point out uncertainties in different phylogenetic sources of finches, which careful consideration can be useful in similar evolutionary studies. Finally, I summarise some vision for future research.

This study focused on the clutch size and age-specific apparent survival rate of the Little Owl (Athene noctua) population in Upper-Kiskunság, Hungary. Between May 2005 and April 2017, 640 individuals were captured and ringed in a total of 746 capture-recapture occasions. Artificial nest boxes were installed in the study area, breeding birds and pulli were captured for ringing/recaptured in these boxes (from March to May), or at the close neighbourhood of those (max. 168 m). Jolly-Seber’s open population method was applied to model the survival rate. The candidate model set included models incorporating age, year-effect, and the combination of those. AICc value was used to compare models in a selection approach. The final model was constructed via model averaging based on the models with significant explanatory power. The average number and SD of pullus/breeding pair was 3.78 ± 0.76. The average apparent annual survival rate (which does not differentiate between mortality and permanent emigration) for the period between pullus stage and the time of the first breeding was estimated as 9.47% ± 2.99% SE, whereas the annual survival rate of adults was 82.74% ± 8.46% SE. The effect of sex on the survival rate of adults was not investigated due to female-biased sample, as the probability of capturing females is significantly higher in late spring months. Our experience reveals that during February and March it is possible to capture both sexes in the nest boxes, and it does not influence negatively the breeding success. Based on our results, the population of the Little Owl is stable in Upper-Kiskunság. A slight increase in estimated population size is observable even if we make no difference between mortality and permanent emigration. The high occupancy rate of the installed nest boxes reveals that nest site availability is an important limiting factor in the studied population.

Between 1995 and 2017 we carried out surveys on the Little Owl (Athene noctua) in Battonya town and Kevermes village in southern Békés county. In 2007 and 2017 we have surveyed nesting sites in the village and the outer areas of Kevermes. The population of the species was estimated at the beginning of the breeding season and in early summer with field observations. Between 1995 and 2017 we collected road-kill data within the entire administrative area of Battonya. We registered each fiund road-killed Little Owl. We found 64 road-kills in Battonya. The number of casualties of the species has increased unambiguously over the studied 23 years. Most of the road-killed Little Owls (53 individuals, 82.81% of the total) were found in summer (June–August). 51 road-killed individuals (79.69%) were noted in the outer areas of Battonya, and 13 specimens (20.31%) in the town. Our results highlight that vehicle traffic is an important mortality factor for the population. The Little Owl has a large population in this landscape, and the population size has increased over the last decade. In the background of this increase is most likely the rise in the number of abandoned houses because of the unfavourable economic and social situation in the region. The local pairs nested only on attics and roof structures in Kevermes, often in residential buildings. The buildings of modern agriculture do not meet the needs of the species. A large part of the population breeds in the village, because with the disappearance of the farms the breeding pairs of the outer areas of Kevermes have disappeared. However, in Battonya the species regularly breeds in the outer areas of the town. Finally, we also collected some ethnoecological data on how local people relate to the species.

The feeding of Little Owl (Athene noctua) was studied in a farmland area of Kiskunság, Central Hungary. For the analyses, a total of 661 Little Owl pellets were collected between February and September 2005 from three locations, corresponding known Little Owl territories situated nearby the settlements Apaj, Kunpeszér and Ladánybene. The aim of the present study was to explore the diet composition of Little Owl and to give a detailed evaluation of the arthropod diversity based on the pellet analysis. The identified prey items represented 15 vertebrate and 39 invertebrate species/taxa. In terms of prey number, dominance of small mammals was observed in two sites (Apaj – 55%, Kunpeszér – 68%), while birds and mammals shared almost equal dominance (~25%) in Ladánybene. The most numerous mammal species was the Common Vole (Microtus arvalis), while the Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) played key role among the birds. Contribution of amphibian Common Spadefoot (Pelobates fuscus) was considerable, while share of reptiles was marginal. Vertebrates also played a predominant role by contributing over 99% of the overall prey biomass in all study sites. Invertebrate prey dominance ranged from 24.8–30.0% while their contribution to the overall biomass was very low (0.14–0.34%). Large sized beetles (Pentodon idiota, Melolontha hippocastani) and orthopterans (Tettigonia viridissima, Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa) were preferred. Arthropod species richness and diversity were the highest in Kunpeszér, supposedly owing to the rich mosaic habitat structure.

The prey composition of the Barn Owl (Tyto alba) can be monitored indirectly by pellet analysis and we used this method to investigate less known small mammal species of Zala County. The number and abundance of small mammal species depend on the structure of the landscape of Barn Owls’ hunting area, therefore we analysed landscape features in the surrounding circles with 2 km radius around the sampling sites. In 2016 we collected 1106 pellets from 13 sampling localities. From the pellets we identified 21 species of 3022 individuals of small mammals (more than 98% of prey). Among the 21 species there was the rare Parti-colured Bat (Vespertilio murinus) and a new species for the county the Steppe Mouse (Mus spicilegus). Positive correlation was found between the diversity of the small mammal fauna of each sampling site and the landscape complexity (number of the landscape patches) of the Barn Owl hunting area. Relative abundance of the Wood Mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus) showed positive correlation with the number of landscape patches, while the abundance of the Lesser White-toothed Shrew (Crocidura suaveolens), the Miller’s Water Shrew (Neomys anomalus), the Striped Field Mouse (Apodemus agrarius) and the Harvest Mouse (Micromys minutus) was higher in hunting areas with more homogenous landscapes. Significant correlations were found between the relative abundance of some small mammal species and the landscape structure of the potential hunting area of owls that confirmed the consistency in habitat preference of some species. Our results proved that the prey-composition of Barn Owls reflects the land use through the distribution and abundance of small mammal species, therefore this method is suitable for ecological analyses of landscape.

Owls represent typical nocturnal avian predators. They are known since the beginning of the Tertiary. Thirteen species live in Europe, but the number of extinct fossil species is only slightly above twice that number. The present genera appeared in the Neogene period. They also have a major significance regarding palaeoecology, since most of the fossilized remains of small-medium sized vertebrates are available from owl pellets. The author wishes to describe the occurrence and evolution of owls in Europe from the Cretaceous to current times, as well as to provide an osteological guide of recent species. The text is supplemented by 16 plates, 4 size charts, and extensive bibliography.

Two new species appeared in the Hungarian avifauna in 2016: the Rock Pipit and the Yellow-billed Loon. The Rock Pipit was trapped and ringed in the habitat reconstruction area (Borsodi-dűlő) near Fertőújlak on 10^th October. The Yellow-billed Loon was seen and photographed on the Lake Balaton at Balatonföldvár, Szántód and Zamárdi on 3–13^th December. The number of bird species which occurred in Hungary has risen to 414 with the occurrences of these species.

During the years 1994–2009, the number of White Stork pairs breeding in the city of Wrocław (293 km²) fluctuated between 5 pairs in 1999 and 19 pairs 2004. Most nests were clumped in two sites in the Odra river valley. Two nests were located only cca. 1 km from the city hall. The fluctuations in numbers can be linked to the availability of feeding grounds and weather. In years when grass was mowed in the Odra valley, the number of White Storks was higher than in years when the grass was left unattended. Overall, the mean number of fledglings per successful pair during the years 1995–2009 was slightly higher in the rural than in the urban area. Contrary to expectation, the mean number of fledglings per successful pair was the highest in the year of highest population density. In two rural counties adjacent to Wrocław, the number of breeding pairs was similar to that in the city in 1994/95 (15 vs. 13 pairs). However, in 2004 the number of breeding pairs in the city almost doubled compared to that in the neighboring counties (10 vs. 19 pairs). After a sharp decline between 2004 and 2008, populations in both areas were similar in 2009 (5 vs. 4 pairs), but much lower than in 1994–1995. Wrocław is probably the only large city (>100,000 people) in Poland, where the White Stork has developed a sizeable, although fluctuating, breeding population. One of the most powerful role the city-nesting White Storks may play is their ability to engage directly citizens with nature and facilitate in that way environmental education and awareness.

Ornithological studies often rely on long-term bird ringing data sets as sources of information. However, basic descriptive statistics of raw data are rarely provided. In order to fill this gap, here we present the fifth item of a series of exploratory analyses of migration timing and body size measurements of the most frequent Passerine species at a ringing station located in Central Hungary (1984–2016). First, we give a concise description of foreign ring recoveries of the Common Nightingale in relation to Hungary. We then shift focus to data of 3892 ringed and 1499 recaptured individuals derived from the ringing station, where birds have been trapped, handled and ringed with standardized methodology since 1984. Timing is described through annual and daily capture and recapture frequencies and their descriptive statistics. We show annual mean arrival dates within the study period and present the cumulative distributions of first captures with stopover durations. We present the distributions of wing, third primary, tail length and body mass, and the annual means of these variables. Furthermore, we show the distributions of individual fat and muscle scores, and the distributions of body mass within each fat score category. We distinguish the spring and autumn migratory periods and breeding season and age groups (i.e. juveniles and adults). Our aim is to provide a comprehensive overview of the analysed variables. However, we do not aim to interpret the obtained results, merely to draw attention to interesting patterns that may be worth exploring in detail. Data used here are available upon request for further analyses.

This paper is the third part of our bird ringing data analysis series (Harnos et al. 2015a, 2016a) in which we continue to focus on exploring data using the R statistical environment. Here, we give a short description of missing data patterns, then handling and visualization techniques that help simultaneously explore the data and the structure of missing values. We try to emphasize that missing data can seriously distort the results of the analyses, therefore the conclusions drawn.