Breeding and migratory distribution of collared pratincole (Glareola pratincola) at Boğazkent, Southern Turkey

Abstract

On migration seasons, both in spring and autumn, wetlands in southern Turkey play a significant role as a stopover and/or breeding areas for several bird species, especially water birds. Although a huge amount of bird species migrate on Turkey every season, there is unfortunately poor information about their migration. Collared pratincole (Glareola pratincola) is one of the important species, which use these areas as stopover or breeding. We monitored Collared pratincole between 2009 and 2011 both in migration and breeding seasons. Collared pratincole started to arrive second half of the April. The most part of the observed birds were passage birds, the average numbers 73 in April and 380 in May, which used the area as stopover for a few days. We found totally 10 nests and colony nested mostly on seasonal wetland, and less pairs chose semi-arid area and very few pairs on pasture. These results are very important to define the protection and sustainable use of areas, but more studies may help to understand the importance of our environment for sustainable protection.

Full text

74
Breeding and migratory distribution of collared pratincole
(
Glareola pratincola
) at Boğazkent, Southern Turkey
Hakan KARAARDIÇ*1, Leyla ÖZKAN2
1Department of Math and Science Education, Education Faculty, Alanya Alaaddin Keykubat University, Alanya, Antalya, Turkey.
2Wildlife Ecology and Management Department, Faculty of Forestry, Duzce University, Duzce, Turkey.
*Corresponding author: hkaraardic@gmail.com
Abstract: On migration seasons, both in spring and autumn, wetlands in southern Turkey play
a significant role as a stopover and/or breeding areas for several bird species, especially water
birds. Although a huge amount of bird species migrate on Turkey every season, there is
unfortunately poor information about their migration. Collared pratincole (
Glareola
pratincola
) is one of the important species, which use these areas as stopover or breeding. We
monitored Collared pratincole between 2009 and 2011 both in migration and breeding
seasons. Collared pratincole started to arrive second half of the April. The most part of the
observed birds were passage birds, the average numbers 73 in April and 380 in May, which
used the area as stopover for a few days. We found totally 10 nests and colony nested mostly
on seasonal wetland, and less pairs chose semi-arid area and very few pairs on pasture. These
results are very important to define the protection and sustainable use of areas, but more
studies may help to understand the importance of our environment for sustainable protection.
Keywords: Breeding, Collared pratincole,
Glareola pratincola
, Migration.
Introduction
Collared pratincole,
Glareola pratincola
,
is a colonial,
monogamous and mainly aerially feeding insectivorous
shorebird (Cramp and Simons, 1983). This species have a
large breeding distribution throughout the Palearctic
(Cramp and Simons, 1983; Del Hoyo et al., 1996), along
the northern shore of the Mediterranean Sea (Calvo and
Alberto, 1990; Calvo, 1994), and in North Africa (Hanane
et al., 2010; Bensaci et al., 2014). Even though this species
breed eastern the Mediterranean Sea, there are only few
investigations to understand breeding ecology and
behaviour of this species (Goutner, 1997; Onmuş and Sıkı,
2011). Because of the habitat loss by using agricultural
land use, these studies have underlined that the intensive
transformation of natural marshes and grasslands into
agricultural areas constitutes a threat to the breeding
populations (Calco and Alberto, 1990; Hanane et al.,
2010).
Agricultural land use is very similar in Turkey and
there is stil restricted information in most aspects of
different species such as Collared pratincole. On the
migration route, in southern Turkey, especially wetlands
and seasonal wetlands have great importance for a
stopover and also for breeding. Nevertheless, only a few
studies show the breeding population size of the species
(Onmuş and Sıkı, 2011). On the other hand, with the
increasing of birdwatcher numbers in Turkey, the number
of recorded birds from different sites are growing up
recent years. But, this data set only helps the distribution
value of species in different areas without the density of
both migratory and breeding populations. Therefore, there
is a big necessity to understand the population dynamics
of this species in southern Turkey. Boğazkent, the studied
area is located on the south coast of Turkey, and over 200
species distribute as passage-, summer- and winter
migrants with some sedentary species. In this study, we
aim to underly the importance of this area for collared
pratincole both passage migrants and breeding pairs.
Materials and Methods
Study area: The study was carried out at Boğazkent in the
Belek Special Protection Area, 45 km east of the city

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Karaardiç and Özkan- Breeding and migratory distribution of collared pratincole at Boğazkent, Turkey
Antalya, Turkey (36°50'N, 31°11'E, near sea level). This
is an area of over 200 ha of shrub steppe, arable fields,
marshlands, grasslands and farmlands (Fig. 1). The site
has a typical Mediterranean climate consisting of hot and
dry summers and mild but windy winters.
Breeding and migrating bird surveys: Data were collected
from March to October between 2009 and 2011. Previous
observations showed that three important areas (seasonal
wetland, semi-arid and pasture areas, Fig. 1) were used as
stopover site and breeding areas by the species. We chose
3 points for observation and counted birds in one hour
period each points every 10 days to estimate the migratory
bird size of the species from the second half of March
through the end of May. Counting breeding birds from
outside of the colony can give a fair estimate. Thus, in
June, July and August, one observer walked carefully
through the colony and counted birds in ten day periods.
Results
Migratory birds: Collared pratincole started to arrive
second half of the April. In the beginning, the numbers of
arrived birds between 8 and 10 individuals in different
years, after a short time (in the beginning of the May) the
numbers increased around 300 individual-groups (Fig. 2-
3). The most part of the observed birds were passage birds,
which used the area as stopover for a few days. Most
migratory birds used the seasonal wetland all studied
Figure 1. Location and features of the study area. The blue line
shows rivers, green area seasonal wetland, dark blue semi-arid
zone and pink pasture.
Figure 2. Migration phenology of Collared pratincole in spring at
Boğazkent. Dispersion of individual numbers in different years
(above) and in average of all years (beneath).

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ACTA BIOLOGICA TURCICA 30(3): 74-78, 2017
years, fewer individuals also used semi-arid zone and
pasture area for stopover (Table 1). There is no significant
difference for individual numbers of migratory birds
between years (P<0.05) (Table 2).
Breeding pairs: We continue to observe and count
individuals from March through end of August each
points every 10 days. We counted 96, 106 and 111
individuals as a mean value in June 2009, 2010 and 2011,
respectively (Fig. 3). This numbers little decrease in July
(80, 80 and 81 individuals in different years, respectively).
We did not disturb the breeding colony, but on our
observations, we found 2 nests in 2009, 4 nests both in
2010 and 2011 (Fig. 4). Colony nested mostly on seasonal
wetland, but on nesting time, June-July and August, this
area dried (Fig. 4 a, c, d) and less pairs chose a semi-arid
zone and very few pairs on pasture (Table 1).
Discussion
One of the important aims of this investigation was to
provide the migratory and breeding distribution of
Collared pratincole in South Turkey. Our results show that
these birds arrive at the study area as stopover and breed
very late (mid-April) than other Mediterranean
populations, such as beginning of March in Morocco
Figure 3. Breeding numbers of Collared pratincole at Boğazkent. Dispersion of individual numbers in different years (left) and in average of all
years (right).
Areas
2009
2010
2011
April
May
April
May
April
May
Migration
Semi-arid Zone
7
55
8
54
6
65
Seasonal wetland
60
242
62
248
59
247
Pasture
6
76
8
74
2
83
Total
73
373
78
376
67
395
2009
2010
2011
June
July
June
July
June
July
Semi-arid Zone
22
18
24
16
26
18
Breeding
Seasonal wetland
66
58
72
60
70
60
Pasture
8
4
10
4
19
3
Total
96
80
106
80
111
81
Table 1. Mean values of individual numbers per months and years on different sites both in migration and breeding process at
Boğazkent, South Turkey.
Years
Min.
Max.
Mean
Std.Error
ANOVA test
(Between years)
P Value
2009
10
420
208.57
60.88
0.995
<0.05
2010
14
410
214.86
60.11
2011
16
440
217.29
65.27
Table 2. The mean, min-max and Std. Error values and comparison of each year.

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Karaardiç and Özkan- Breeding and migratory distribution of collared pratincole at Boğazkent, Turkey
(Hanane et al., 2010), mid-March in Algeria (Bensaci et
al., 2014), end of March in Spain (Bertolero and Martinez-
Vilalta, 1999) and first half of April in France (Vincent-
Martin, 2007).
Collared pratincole breeds also in Greece (Goutner,
1997), in western Turkey (Onmuş and Sıkı, 2011) and in
European Russia (Lebedeva, 1998). These studies did not
point out the arrival timing of the populations, but
according to our results, migratory individuals may arrive
to their northern breeding sites end of May or beginning
of June. Hanane et al. (2010) reported that the hatching
date is 45 days, our results show that the birds arrived
Figure 4. Breeding Collared pratincole (G. pratincola) at Boğazkent. (a) First individuals on seasonal wetland, (b) on pasture, (c) and (d) Collared
pratincole nest on semi-arid zone, (e) and (f) hatched chicks, in first week and close to the nest (photo by H. Karaardıç, 2009).

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ACTA BIOLOGICA TURCICA 30(3): 74-78, 2017
earlier than others may settle and after a short time lay
eggs, because we observed the hatched chicks in early
June.
There is quite restricted information about the density
of migratory species likewise breeding birds on
distributed areas. Many studies of Collared pratincoles
around the Mediterranean mentioned the main causes of
nest loss were human disturbance such as agriculture and
domestic animals (Cramp and Simons, 1983; Hanane et
al., 2010). We can estimate that Collared pratincole also
could be affected by human agricultural studies and
predation according to the breeding ecology of Great
short-toed lark (
Calandrella brachydactyla
) (Karaardıç
and Özkan, 2013) and Spur-winged lapwing (
Vanellus
spinosus
) (Özkan et al., 2013) at Boğazkent.
In conclusion, even though these results are very
important to define the protection and sustainable use of
areas, it is not enough to determine the threaten factors for
nature protection. Such studies may help to make different
hypothesis like the breeding ecology of species in
different areas, especially comparison between protecting
and non-protecting areas, will be more useful to
understand the importance of our environment.
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