Subtitle:

Wybiórczość środowiskowa i zasoby pokarmowe zimowisk siwerniaka w południowozachodniej Polsce ; Habitat selection of wintering Water Pipits

Contributor:

Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Publisher:

Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences

Place of publishing:

Warsaw

Description:

pg(s) 41–48

Type of object:

Journal/Article

Abstract:

In winter 2004/2005, 1532 Water Pipits were recorded during 37 censuses carried out along an established route on a sewage farm flooded with wastewater (Wrocław, SW Poland). Single birds were seen in nearly 39% of all 299 encounters, while the largest concentrations, between 16–28 individuals, accounted for 9%. 78% of all birds were observed on meadows flooded with communal wastewater. The remaining ones stayed around irrigation ditches (n = 172, 11.5%), sedimentation basins (n = 88, 5.9%) and reedbeds (n = 72, 4.8%). The mean size of the Water Pipit concentration was largest on the meadows (mean ± SE = 6.54 ± 0.50 individuals) and smallest at the sedimentation basins (mean = 1.44 ± 0.14). In this winter season (December-first half of March), rainfall enlarged numbers of birds to forage on the meadows, and the thickness of the snow cover was positively correlated with bird abundance at the sedimentation basins. The dominant available prey items inhabiting the warm wastewater were Diptera larvae (96%), 88% of which belonged to the genus Eristalis. The mean (± SD) invertebrate biomass was highest in the basin sediments (1.03 ± 1.14 g/dm3 of deposits), and lowest on the flooded meadows (0.20 ± 0.37 g/dm3 of deposits). The results point to the significance of the artificial environmental conditions created by warm sewage water, which enable the birds to remain largely independent of the weather and thus to overwinter in a cold region of central Europe.

Relation:

Acta Ornithologica

Volume:

41

Issue:

1

Start page:

41

End page:

48

Detailed Resource Type:

Journal

Format:

text/xml

Resource Identifier:

oai:rcin.org.pl:55562 ; 10.3161/068.041.0110

Source:

MiIZ PAN, call no. P.257 ; MiIZ PAN, call no. P.4568 ; click here to follow the link

Language:

eng

Language of abstract:

pol ; eng

Rights:

Rights Reserved - Restricted Access

Terms of use:

Copyright-protected material. Access only on terminals at the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, may be used within the limits of statutory user freedoms.

Digitizing institution:

Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Original in:

Library of the Museum and Institute of Zoology of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Access:

Open