Volume 27 (2019): Issue 2 (December 2019)

The Black-winged Stilt was the bird of the year in Hungary in 2019. The population of the species increased from 20–25 breeding pairs to 550–680 pairs from 1980s to the present. 75–85% of the Hungarian population bred on effluent pools for pigs and settling pools at sugar beet factories in the first half of 1990s. There were significantly more breeding pairs in Hungary in 1999 compared to previous years, and finally 871 breeding pairs of Black-winged Stilts were documented in 2000 and the Hungarian population was estimated at 940–960 pairs. There were 550–680 breeding pairs in Hungary between 2015 and 2017. Significantly more clutches had more than five eggs in the sampled colonies during the influx in 2000 than in the egg collections before 1971 or in the sampled colony in 2008 as well. First arrivals reached Hungary between 5 and 20 March (median: 15 March) between 2005 and 2019. These arrival dates fall approximately a month earlier than the former arrival dates in mid-April during the 1980s. 470 Black-winged Stilts were observed in a single flock during post-breeding dispersal, this flock was the largest ever documented in Hungary. Stilts left Hungary by the first half of September in the 1980s, and in contrast, they left Hungary between 27 August and 4 January (median: 19 October) between 2005 and 2019. Recently, the most departure dates fall one and a half to three months later compared to the departure dates in the 1980s. Black-winged Stilts marked in Hungary disperse in the Carpathian Basin during their post-fledging/post-breeding dispersal. Based on ring readings of two individuals, they start to migrate southwest with stopover sites in Italy, but their wintering areas are unknown. Stilts hatched in Portugal (one individual) and France (two individuals) bred in Hungary during the large influxes in 1999 and 2000. Five Black-winged Stilts hatched in Italy were observed later in Hungary and are supposed to be breeders in Hungary in most cases. Furthermore, one individual captured as an adult in Spain and two trapped in Italy were observed in Hungary. The Hungarian population of Black-winged Stilt is threatened by predation on eggs and chicks, drainage of wetlands, and also by human-induced flooding of artificial wetlands (e.g. fishponds). Stilts regularly occupy artificial breeding islands the first years after habitat restoration. The Hungarian population of Black-winged Stilts is increasing due to habitat management with grazing animals, especially with Mangalica ‘Woolly’ Pigs and Water Buffalos.

The well-known Russian ornithologist Prof. Peter Sushkin described it as a distinct species from Bashkortostan (Bashkiria) in 1897, a highly acclaimed discovery. However, its breeding grounds never been discovered. Since then, there has been a long-standing debate over the taxonomic position of Anser neglectus. Taxonomists have argued that Anser neglectus belongs to the group of A. fabalis Lath. because of its close resemblance with A. f. fabalis.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, large numbers of the Sushkin’s goose were observed in three winter quarters: on two lakes in the Republic of Bachkortostan, in the surroundings of the town of Tashkent in the Republic Uzbekistan, and in the puszta Hortobágy in eastern Hungary. It is a pity that taxonomists did not thoroughly compare the Russian and Hungarian ornithological papers concerning the former presence of Anser neglectus in these areas, because these rich sources refer to characteristics that would cast serious doubt on the classification of Anser neglectus as a subspecies, an individual variation or mutation of A. f. fabalis.

Sushkin’s goose, though a typical Taiga Bean Goose, distinguished itself from other taxa of the Bean Goose by its plumage, its field identification, by its specific “Gé-gé” call, the size of its bill, and by its preference for warm and dry winter haunts. A. neglectus should therefore be considered a separate, fully distinct species, sensu Stegmann (1935) and Stegmann in Schenk (1931/34), if we follow the established criteria in bird systematics of Tobias et al. (2010).

Between 1908 and 1911, an estimation of up to 150.000 individuals of A. neglectus wintered in the Hortobágy puszta. Approximate counts for both other winter quarters are not available. The last living birds were seen in the zoological garden of Budapest in 1934. Since then, A. f. fabalis and A. s. rossicus “Type neglectus” (i.e. A. f. fabalis and A. s. rossicus with a color of the bill and the legs, similar to the former A. neglectus) have been observed sporadically on the breeding grounds and in the winter quarters of both taxa. However, the true A. neglectus seems to be extinct. Its sudden disappearance may be related to the Tunguska event, the catastrophe in 1908 that may have caused genetic mutations. This hypothesis is considered to be the most likely, among other available hypotheses about its extinction.

The bioacoustic analyses of animal sounds result in an enormous amount of digitized acoustic data, and we need effective automatic processing to extract the information content of the recordings. Our research focuses on the song of Collared Flycatcher (Ficedula albicollis) and we are interested in the evolution of acoustic signals. During the last 20 years, we obtained hundreds of hours of recordings of bird songs collected in natural environment, and there is a permanent need for the automatic process of recordings. In this study, we chose an open-source, deep-learning image detection system to (1) find the species-specific songs of the Collared Flycatcher on the recordings and (2) to detect the small, discrete elements so-called syllables within the song. For these tasks, we first transformed the acoustic data into spectrogram images, then we trained two deep-learning models separately on our manually segmented database. The resulted models detect the songs with an intersection of union higher than 0.8 and the syllables higher than 0.7. This technique anticipates an order of magnitude less human effort in the acoustic processing than the manual method used before. Thanks to the new technique, we are able to address new biological questions that need large amount of acoustic data.

During the past two centuries, few studies have been conducted on biometrics of North African Blackbirds. Several of these studies were carried out during the latter part of the 19^th and in the early 20^th centuries. As a result, two subspecies were recognized namely Turdus merula algira inhabiting northern regions of North Africa and some localities in southwestern continental Europe and T. m. mauritanicus inhabiting central western Morocco and southern Algeria and Tunisia (to the end of arid climatic regions). In this study we provide morphological data from the northeastern Algerian population of Blackbird. Results reveal no differences between sexes in any of the measurements (small sample size). Comparison of morphological data of specimens collected in the northern region of North Africa and from the southern region of Maghreb countries (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco) show morphometric differences only in wing length. These results are consistent with the existence of multiple subspecies in North African populations of Blackbird. Our findings support the assumptions of previous researchers in considering T. m. algira as typical of northern areas of Maghreb countries and T. m. mauritanicus typical of southern areas of the region.

In the spring of 2018, 18 nests of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocoptes medius) were surveyed in a 300 hectare area of the forest region in the south and north of Yasouj. Egg-laying began in late March. Clutch sizes were between three and seven (mean: 4.29 ± 1.25, median: 4, N = 8). The incubation period varied from 11 to 13 days (mean: 12.4 ± 0.89 days). The number of eggs that hatched in successful nests (N = 8) ranged from 2 to 5 (mean: 3.75 ± 0.89). Hatching percentage (N = 7) was 90%. Duration of the nestling period was 23–25 days (median: 24 days). Fledging dates ranged from Apr 28 to June 10, and most chicks (77%) fledged in the first ten days of May. Number of fledglings from successful nests (N = 17) ranged from 1 to 5 (mean: 3.58 ± 0.71), whereas the mean number of fledglings from all nests (N = 18) was 3.39 ± 1.09. The percentage of successful nests (at least one fledged young, N = 17) was 94.4%. The overall duration of breeding varied from 39 to 43 days (mean: 40.8 ± 1.48 days).

The Fieldfare is a bird species widely distributed in the Palearctic region. In Hungary, the species is considered as a rare breeder and common, sometimes abundant migrant in autumn and spring, and also as winter visitor. It is prone to invasion, since northern breeding populations leave the breeding sites in large numbers only when the available food is inadequate or inaccessible to the birds. Most populations follow a southern-southwestern migration pattern, and in the course of their movement they also migrating through the Carpathian Basin. In this study, we examined the migration and wintering of the species in an area of southeast Hungary between 2004 and 2019. Data were collected between the beginning of October and the middle of April and during that period we saw Fieldfares a total of 416 times. In addition to the description of migration, the effect of weather on bird numbers was also investigated. According to our results, the species appears in the area in October and disappears in late March and the first half of April. The individuals that migrate in October are likely belonging to the Central European breeding population, while from November the Scandinavian birds can be seen. The maximum number of birds observed during the different years showed significant differences, as did the patterns of movements within the seasons. The relationship between the local weather and the number of birds has been demonstrated over several seasons, which is typical of species with an escape migration.

Publications about curiosities are known in the Hungarian and international ornithological literature since the 1800s. Although studies explaining the processes of pigmentation dysfunctions have been known since the mid-nineteenth century, these specimens still appear only as curiosities in the professional press and the terminology used to specify them is generally incorrect. The analysed genetic abnormalities causing white colour varieties in Woodcock (albinism, leucism, Ino) are due to mutations. By briefly describing the biological background of the defects, this work helps detect colour changes. In this article, we provide a broad overview of partially or completely white Woodcocks (n = 23 expl.) found in international (8 countries) and Hungarian literature. We have supplemented the literature background with our own studies. The large-scale analysis of the variability of colours and patterns was made possible by the countrywide wing sample collection within the biometric module of Woodcock Monitoring, which has been running under the coordination of the Hungarian Hunting Conservation Association since 2010. Within this framework, 12,078 samples were analysed between 2010–2018. We found that pigment deficiency occurred in the sample set only with a proportion of 0.01%. Based on the Hungarian literature and our own samples, we presented the known occurrences on maps of the state territory with boundaries before and after 1921, indicating the causes of patterns of occurrence by migration and frequencies of occurrence.

There are numerous publications in the ornithological literature on mixed-species broods, i.e. on cases when a species lays some or all of its eggs into the nests of other species. This phenomenon, known as brood parasitism, has not yet been studied in Hungary. Here, I use the term brood parasitism, but I could not separate cases of egg dumping, a reproductive error by females. Based on literature and my own observations, I found evidence for interspecific brood parasitism in 28 species breeding in Hungary, not including the cases of the obligate interspecific brood parasite, the Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus). Only one of these belongs to passerines, while in the rest of the cases, this phenomenon occurred in representatives of non-passerine families. However, cases of brood parasitism and nest parasitism have to be treated separately. The latter refers to cases when a species occupies a nest, usually a nesthole or nestbox, already containing eggs of another species, and lays its own eggs next to the foreign eggs. The present study provides data on European Roller (Coracias garrulus), Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), Common Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus), Red-footed Falcon (Falco vespertinus), Eurasian Hobby (Falco subbuteo), tit species (Parus, Cyanistes, Poecile spp.), Eurasian Nuthatch (Sitta europaea) and Eurasian Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus), but in all likelihood the number of species involved is much higher.

Due to the number of specimen, their size and weaker flight capabilities they are one of the favorite preys of furred and feathered carnivores. Due to this factor quite a number of skeletal fragments remained and fossilized over millions of years, especially in caves. Their presence in Europe can be traced back to the Eocene, but the majority of finds come from the Neogene and the Quaternary. In the Carpathian Basin they are known since the beginning of the Neogene. The text is complemented with the bibliography concerning the fossilized material, one figure and six table.

Two new species appeared in the Hungarian avifauna in 2017: the Siberian Accentor and the Bonaparte’s Gull. A Siberian Accentor was observed and photographed at Surány near Pócsmegyer between 18^th–29^th January. A Bonaparte’s Gull was seen and photographed over Hortobágy Fishponds at Hortobágy on 14^th April. With the observations of these species, the number of bird species known to occur in Hungary rose to 416.