Garganey 23.Anas querquedula

Hundreds of thousands of Garganey breeding in spend the winter in the Sahelian fl oodplains, but to get there, they have to fl y 10 000 km, or more. Why fl y all the way to the Senegal Delta, the Inner and Lake Chad when seemingly equally attractive wetlands abound in southern and Central (although large numbers do winter in S and SE Asia)? In Garganey are associated with fl oodplains and lakes in the , where they con- centrate in the larger wetlands, resting on disturbance-free open during daylight and heading for nocturnal feeding areas 10-15 km away once the short dusk has arrived (Roux et al. 1978, Triplet et al. 1995). Wave upon wave of croaking Garganey speeding low over pitch-black desert provide an unforgettable experience in an otherwise silent world, where one might expect only the occasional yelp of a jackal. Dry years in their winter quarters land the birds in dire straits, because the scarcity of feeding sites on fl oodplains acts as a refuelling bottleneck for the long return trip to Siberia – the competiton for limited resources is intense. Normally during defl ooding, Garganey concentrate in the steadily reducing number of shallow lakes and pools, where they gorge on water lily seeds, which makes catching the birds quite simple: in the evening, put up some old fi shing nets where the shallows have retained water lilies; in the morning return to remove the captured birds. Bozo fi shermen from the Djenné area in the southern Inner Niger

278 Living on the edge Delta have acted this way at least since the 19th century (Tréca 1989). The photos on page 286-7 tell the story in a nut- shell. Bozo birdcatchers were engaged by Guy Jarry, Francis Roux (CRPBO) 1 and Bouba Fofana (Eaux & Forêts, ) from January to March in 1977 to 1979 to catch and ring large numbers of Garganey, one of which was recovered in eastern Siberia, nearly 12 000 km from its ringing station. In February 2007, Nicolas Gaidet (CIRAD) 2 and his team again employed Bozo birdcatchers to catch Garganey, this time to fit them with satellite transmitters. Usually, local birdcatchers slit the throats of captured birds, the daily catch being sold to the local fish dealer, who transports the birds with iced fish to the market. During pre-migratory fattening, Garganey increase their body mass by some 40% during February, which process is parallelled by their price on the market in , rising from the equivalent of 0.62€ in January to 1.10€ around 1 March in the early 2000s. Such a high fat load may enable the birds to fly many thousands of kilometres without refuelling but it also makes them a highly desirable prize to the people of .

Breeding range coveries during homeward migration (March-April) came mainly from southern and eastern , contrasting with those during The Garganey breeds in a broad belt across from the Atlan- autumn migration (July-October) that cluster in western as well as tic Ocean in the west to the in the east, roughly be- (few from ). For instance, 69% of tween 40° and 65oN. Within this huge area of some 10 000 × 2500 Italian recoveries are from March and only 10% from August-Sep- km, it reaches its highest density between 50° and 55oN and between tember (100%=486). In The Netherlands, however, none came from 15° and 105oE, an area of 6000 × 550 km comprising eastern Ger- March and 79% from August-September (100%=163). This differ- many, Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, S Russia, N Kazakhstan ence may be biased by the timing of open hunting seasons and by and N Mongolia (Farago & Zomerdijk 1997, Fokin et al. 2000). differences in hunting pressure, but counts and observations of mi- Around 1990, the breeding population in was grating birds also suggest that, in March, birds from African winter- estimated at 570 000 – 960 000 pairs, with another 79 000-92 000 in ing areas migrate via southeastern Europe (Vogrin 1999), whilst the rest of Europe (30 000 in Belarus, 28 000 in Ukraine; Farago & post-breeding movements pass on a large scale through western Eu- Zomerdijk 1997). For the 1990s, Fokin et al. (2000) arrived at about half a million pairs in the former USSR, of which 100 000 are in the Asian part and 400 000 in the European part.

Migration

The euring database holds 2347 recoveries of Garganey ringed in Eurasia, of which 68 come from Africa. A further 25 birds have been recovered of those ringed in , including 13 from Eurasia (Fig. 157A). The latter records have proven particularly informative. Four birds, all adult males, ringed between 30 January and 3 March 1978 in the Inner Niger Delta, were shot between one and nine years later in their presumed breeding areas (in May or June). One male was recovered in Belarus (at 30°E, 5367 km from the Inner Niger Delta), but the other three came from eastern Siberia (at 83°, 101° and 127°E, 8830 km, 10 144 km and 11 846 km respectively from their breeding areas), suggesting (as substantiated below) that birds wintering in Mali originate from eastern breeding areas. One of the unforgettable impressions of West African floodplains is the Most recoveries referred to birds shot during migration (see Fig. Garganey, present in their hundreds of thousands. Hard to find except 158). Recoveries in May-June are considered to relate to birds in by airplane, and even then not easy to count, but unexpectedly mate- their breeding quarters, and this coincides roughly with the rialising on the horizon like a cloud of mosquitos after some unknown where breeding density is recorded as high (Fokin et al. 2000). Re- disturbance.

Garganey Anas querquedula 279