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Satellite Telemetry of Corncrake Satellite telemetry of Corncrake Co-financed by the EU and European Regional Development Fund. Investing in your future. This project was financed by Cross-border Cooperation Operational Programme Objective 3 Czech Republic – Free State of Bavaria 2007–2013 1 Content Study and protection of an enigmatic bird from agricultural landscapes . 3 Introducing the studied species . 3. What we know about Corncrakes . 4. What is satellite telemetry? . 6. Project objectives . 8. Monitoring and tagging methods . 8. How we used satellite transmitters to follow Corncrakes in the field . 10. Project results . 13. Behaviour in breeding areas . 13. Basic data for all tagged birds . 15. Experiences in Corncrake protection . 15. Migration . 19. Conclusions . 21 Animal species typical for biotopes of Corncrakes . 21. Final remarks . 22. Acknowledgements . 23. Cryptic coloration and slow movements make Corncrakes almost invisible in vegetation. Study and protection of an enigmatic bird from agricultural landscapes This joint Czech–German research project was launched with financial support from the European Regi- onal Development Fund: OBJECTIVE 3 “Investing in your future” 2007–2013. The project was administ- ered jointly by the Zoological and Botanical Garden of Pilsen and by LBV Cham, and it would not have been possible without the enthusiastic efforts of many ornithologists and other friends of nature. The study was carried out in the national protected landscape areas (NPLA) of Český les and Šumava in Pilsen Region, NPLA Slavkovský les in the Karlovy Vary Region (all in the Czech Republic), and also in the Cham District in Bavaria. Introducing the studied species The Corncrake (Crex crex) is a medium-sized member of the Rallidae family. Reminding one of a small par- tridge, Corncrakes typically weigh about 165 g. In total 15 species may be found in the Palearctic realm, while in the Czech Republic only 7 species have been documented, 2 of which are very rare. It is a typical species in wet meadows within agricultural areas. This exclusively migratory species has documented winter grounds in equatorial and southern parts of Africa. The detailed biology of the Corncrake is still little known. It is protected in the European Union (EU) by Council Directive 79/409/EEC on the conservation of wild birds. This law was adopted by the Czech Republic in corresponding legislation for the protection of nature and Corncrakes are listed as a specially protected species in the category of extremely endangered species. Protection of Corncrakes in the Czech Republic is supported, too, by other agricultural and environmental measures, and in particular by government directive 79/2007, which regulates husbandry of cultivated mea- dows and abandoned arable lands in areas where this species has been proven to occur. Corncrake is a rather inconspicuous species, living mostly within dense grassland vegetation, and its pre- sence is often confirmed only by its stereotypic loud mating calls. Calling males defend their territories, and this facilitates their capture using playback recordings. When escaping, corncrakes do not like to fly but rather disappear very discreetly by running in a crouched position with the head horizontally extended. 3 What we know about Corncrakes The birds return from their African winter grounds to the Czech Republic around mid-May for breeding and migrate south again at the turn of August and September. Just after returning north, the males occupy their own previous territories or search for suitable new territories. Such areas are typified by damp mea- dow vegetation or fields with well grown cover, as is necessary for their safety. Their return from winter grounds is indicated by their characteristic monotonous “krekskreks” calls from which their scientific name is derived. From the second half of June, in suitable places one can hear these repeated calls throughout entire nights. Such places constitute so-called communal “leks,” where males effectively attract females from the larger area. During daylight hours, males call only sporadically, with the exception of the peak of the mating season. It is supposed that continuously calling males had not found females for mating. Due to the Corncrake’s extremely secretive lifestyle, the calling of males is the sole indicator of the species’ presence in an area. Suitable biotopes mainly include wet meadows, riparian lowlands around streams, old grown-up pastures, and, as may be necessary in some areas, agricultural fields with alfalfa or grain crops. Females also can be heard in some cases, but their voices sound deeper. It is supposed that Corncrakes do not form (long-term) pairs. Females clutch twice a year, brooding about 6–10 mottled eggs in a nest usually hidden in dense meadow. a b c d Chicks grow very rapidly and can fly after 2 weeks. Young chicks are black but soon turn brown: a) 3 days, b) 10 days, c) 13 days, and d) 17 days. 4 In years with usual weather conditions, the first clutch hatches around 15th June and the second at the beginning of August. Breeding is influenced by landscape elevation, however, and the number of chicks successfully raised depends on the timing of mowing. Females incubate their eggs alone for 17 days. Chicks grow quickly and their black colour turns to a spotted brown at the age of about 2 weeks, at which time they also can fly. In mid-July the males mostly stop calling and begin moulting. Because the birds are synchronous moulters, they are unable to fly for 10 days and are very vulnerable at this time. Direct observations of Corncrakes are very rare and discovery of their nests is quite exceptional. The- refore, all density figures are based only on “number of calling males”. As measured by this method, the total number of calling males in the Czech Republic is estimated (extrapolated) to be about 1,500–1,700. In Pilsen Region, approximately 100 territories of males have been estimated to occur. This figure fluctuates from year to year according to vegetation development at the time of calling and also general weather conditions, but variation is probably also due to mortality during migration in some years. Numbers of calling males in 2014 May June Studied areas and locations of calling males in two monitoring periods (May and June) in 2014. 5 What is satellite telemetry? Satellite telemetry (Argos system) is an automatic method for following the movements of tagged ani- mals. With their global coverage, the satellites can identify and locate the special transmitters even if birds are moving great distances over the sea or uninhabited areas, between continents, and the like. The small airborne Argos-certified platform transmitter terminal (PTT) repeatedly sends short messages (0.2 seconds long, so-called “beeps”) in programmed periods every minute. Messages include a coded ID and other technical data (temperature, voltage, activity, etc.). Messages from some larger PTTs may also include precise GPS locations as collected periodically according to the PTTs’ programming. However, such PTTs require more energy and are much heavier. The smallest PTTs are dependent only on the older, so-called “Doppler shift method”, which is less accurate because the geographic position is calculated according to the satellite position and very small changes in the received frequencies in subsequent “beeps”. received frequency received frequency > transmitted frequency time received frequency < transmitted frequency Doppler curve satellite with polar orbit leaving satellite approaching orbit Transmitter (Argos PTT) Chart illustrating how the Argos system calculates the Doppler shift from PTT messages. 6 Argos locations have highly variable accuracy. Even the very good-quality location of our bird provided by Argos (in the centre of the ellipse) may be off. The anisotropic nature of the error distribution means that the true position is theoretically expected to fall within the ellipse with 67% probability (i.e. 1 standard deviation). The real position of the bird was outside (red dot). Dispersion of Argos locations (Kalman filter) of ID 115943 (June 17 – September 4, 2012) when the bird remained within a small home range area in the middle according to our field locations. All location classes in blue; best location classes (LC 1 to 3) depicted in red occur within an area of about 8 x 2.7 km. The Argos commercial service, provided by French and American agencies, is not inexpensive. Today, it is the only functioning global system in the world for very small transmitters. It presently uses 6 active satellites with polar orbits, which means they are always passing over the poles. Thus, each satellite scans the entire globe in a belt about 5,000 km wide approximately every 1.5 hours. Con- sidering the size of Corncrakes, the only suitable tag available in 2012 was Microwave Telemetry’s PTT-100 solar-powered 5 gram tag. In fact, these tags weighed just 4.7 g and thus, given a bird wei- ghing about 167 g, they fall well within the rule of thumb that the extra weight should not exceed 3% of body mass. At the beginning of our project it was not clear if the standard Teflon ribbon harnessing would be suitable for this species living in dense vegetation and whether the radiating power of the transmitter would be sufficiently strong for the satellites considering that the birds spend most of their time below wet vegetation where an antenna is not erect but rather is almost always touching the ground. In the first year we verified that the system worked and that the satellites
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