Bird ringing datasets constitute possibly the largest source of temporal and spatial information on vertebrate taxa available on the globe. Initially, the method was invented to understand avian migration patterns. However, data deriving from bird ringing has been used in an array of other disciplines including population monitoring, changes in demography, conservation management and to study the effects of climate change to name a few. Despite the widespread usage and importance, there are no guidelines available specifically describing the practice of data management, preparation and analyses of ringing datasets. Here, we present the first of a series of comprehensive tutorials that may help fill this gap. We describe in detail and through a real-life example the intricacies of data cleaning and how to create a data table ready for analyses from raw ringing data in the R software environment. Moreover, we created and present here the R package; ringR, designed to carry out various specific tasks and plots related to bird ringing data. Most methods described here can also be applied to a wide range of capture-recapture type data based on individual marking, regardless to taxa or research question.

Shortage of breeding sites is an important limiting factor of bird populations. Artificial breeding platforms, nest-boxes or man-made twig nests often present solutions with remarkable results, however long-term sustainability of these populations remains to be resolved. Furthermore, the question whether the inference of results of studies conducted on birds breeding in artificial breeding sites can be generalized to other populations, still remains open. Here we present the history, and the results of a 20 year old (1995-2015) nest-box programme initiated to increase potential breeding possibilities of Red-footed Falcons in an area, where nest-site shortage was a severe limiting factor. We show how various other species (Jackdaws, Kestrels and Long-eared Owls) have utilized these resources, and present descriptive statistics on their reproductive performance. Analysing the data of a total of 1432 breeding attempts, we show that Red-footed Falcons have similar clutch sizes, and nesting success (i.e. ratio of nests with at least on fledgling), however fledging success (ratio of the number of eggs/fledged nestlings) was different in artificial nest-boxes. When we excluded closed box types from artificial nests, this difference was not apparent. In case of Kestrels (n=1626 breeding attempts) clutch size was significantly higher in artificial nests, while we found no difference in fledging or nesting success. When only comparing open boxes to natural nests, the difference in clutch size was no longer significant. We also analysed the effect of nest box design on reproductive parameters of the two species using regression trees. Inter annual effects were the most important in shaping clutch size and fledging rate of both falcon species, however we also found nest-box design effects, but only in Red-footed Falcons. In years when mean clutch size was high, these birds had lower clutch size in an older, darker nest-box type compared to an alternative design, and to open boxes. However, fledging rate in the same years was lower for both open boxes and older nest-boxes. We conclude that artificial colonies are an important and successful tool in Red-footed Falcon conservation, and that the breeding parameters measured in artificial colonies depend on nest-box design. We present correlative evidence that closed boxes have a significant positive species specific effect on reproduction, probably due to their protection against weather. We also show that birds may have a preference for a certain nest-box design, and that the breeding success in the less favoured box type may be similar to that in open nests. We recommend that future studies incorporate nest-type and nest-box design effects in all comparisons made on reproductive performance in case of Red-footed Falcons and Kestrels.

The present paper acts as an introduction to a series that will describe the exploratory analyses of migration phenology and morphometrics of the most common passerine species at the Ócsa Bird Ringing Station. This station is situated in the Ócsa Landscape Protection Area that belongs to the Duna-Ipoly National Park, Hungary. The area is somewhat cooler and more humid than the surrounding agricultural fields and tree plantations, covered by a mosaic of diverse hygrophilous vegetation patches. Bird trapping is mostly based on Japanese mist-net lines crossing different plant communities. During the period of 1984-2015, a total of 422,862 birds were trapped and ringed here, while 202,739 local, 1,235 within country, and 443 foreign recaptures were also recorded. Each bird is characterized by the following data: location and time of capture, species, age, sex, scores of fat, pectoral muscle, wing tip abrasion, and moult, length of wing, 3 rd primary, and tail, and body mass. After subjected to a rigorous quality check, digital data are deposited in the archive of the Hungarian Bird Ringing Centre, and the EURING data base. From time to time, other research projects also utilized the accessibility of wild birds captured here, thus collection of blood samples, ecto-and endoparasites was carried out at the station. The relatively long time span, large number of species and individuals, and the readily available environmental (weather, vegetation, etc.) data makes the avian data collected here a suitable base for studies of various disciplines like capture methodology, habitat preferences,breeding, migration, and wintering, effects of weather and climate change, and epidemiology of viruses and parasites.Összefoglalás Jelen cikk egy olyan cikksorozat bevezető része, amelyben egy közép-magyarországi gyűrűzőállomáson -Ócsai Madárvártán -leggyakrabban előforduló énekesmadarak vonulás időzítésének és testméreteinek exploratív elemzéseit közöljük. A gyűrűző állomás a Duna-Ipoly Nemzeti Parkhoz tartozó Ócsai Tájvédelmi Körzetben található. A terület egy jégkorszaki maradványláp, mozaikos vegetációval. A madarak befogása a területre jellemző különböző növénytársulásokban, döntő többségben japán típusú függönyhálókkal történik. Az 1984-2015 között zajló munka során 422 862 madarat fogtunk, gyűrűztünk, 202 739 saját, 1235 hazai és 443 külföldi vonatkozású visszafogásunk volt. A befogott madarakról a következő adatokat vettük fel: a madarak befogási helye 12 méteres pontossággal, ideje 1 órás pontossággal, faja, kora, ivara, zsír-, izom-, vedlés-és kopás kódja, szárny-, 3. evező-, és farokhossza 1 mm-es pontossággal, testtömege 0,1 g pontossággal, teljes vedlést végző madárnál az evezőés faroktollaknál egyenként 0-5-ös skálán. Az adatok -ellenőrzés után -a Magyar Madárgyűrűzési Központba és az EURING adatbázisba kerülnek. A standard adatfelvételen túl -időközönként és bizonyos fajoknál -egyéb vizsgálatok is történnek, pl. ekto, és endoparazita gyűjtés, vérminta gyűjtés stb. A viszonylag hosszú időintervallum, a nagy fajszám és fajo...

The Red-footed Falcon is a facultatively colonial species that exploits rookeries, artificial nest-box colonies and solitary corvid nests for breeding. Moreover, the remain gregarious in the post breeding period using communal roost sites prior to migration. We developed and implemented a survey protocol to allow to precisely estimate the number of breeding pairs in all three breeding types and to assess large scale spatio-temporal changes in roost site usage. Our results show that the lowest number of breeding pairs (558) was in 2006. However, in 2014 the number of pairs showed a two fold increase, mainly due to a large scale nest-box programme implemented in the past decade. We identified a total of 105 roost sites throughout the country. The number of birds peaked in the second week of September in the past 10 years. We formulate a recommendation to maintain population monitoring efficiency by reducing the frequency of full surveys to 5 years and using designated study areas to control for temporal trends in between.

Fehérvári et al.: Modeling habitat selection of the red-footed falcon (Falco vespertinus)-59 - Abstract. Due to a severe population decline and shrinkage of distribution range in the past decades, the red-footed falcon has gained top priority in both worldwide and Hungarian nature conservation. As a facultative colonial breeder, in Hungary, this species predominantly nests in rookeries. The number of rooks (Corvus frugilegus) has also dramatically fallen recently, but population decline did not affect the large scale breeding distribution of this species. In our study we analyzed the presence of red-footed falcons at a colony in the case of current and historical breeding ranges based on landscape scaled habitat variables. We used a potential colony home-range size, estimated from observed home-range sizes in order to determine the scale of influential habitat variables. According to our results, the primary cause of the observed range shift is the urbanization of rooks in definable regions of Hungary. The ratio of forests and open water surfaces within the potential home-range had negative, while the ratio of grasslands had a positive effect on the probability of red-footed falcon presence. None of our models predicted red-footed falcon presence at colonies outside the current breeding range, suggesting that a probable increase in redfooted falcon population numbers will not be accompanied by the expansion of the current breeding range.

The red-footed falcon Falco vespertinus is an enigmatic colonial raptor of high international conservation concern. One of the identified threatening factors responsible for the recent worldwide population decline is the shortage of suitable colonial nesting sites. In theory, this problem can easily be resolved by establishing artificial colonies. However, the key to a successful large scale nest-box scheme is to provide these artificial colonies in habitats suitable for the species. A Hungarian-Serbian project aimed to establish such nesting facilities in northern Serbia, although the lack of recent full-scale habitat surveys hindered the designation of the locations of these artificial nesting sites. We used five different species distribution models to model the distribution of nest sites on a 10 ¥ 10 km grid in Hungary and in Romania. We then used the ensemble predictions of the best performing models to project the probability of red-footed falcon nest site presence in northern Serbia (predicted area). The models showed that three variables (grasslands, pastures and broad-leaved forests) had the highest importance in describing the spatial pattern of nest sites in the modelling area. The extent of grasslands and pastures had positive effects, while broad-leaved forests had negative impact on the probability of nest site presence. The predictions classified all the currently known colonies in the predicted area correctly. Our results suggest that the potential breeding distribution in Serbia is similar to that of two decades ago, thus large-scale land use changes are presumably not responsible for the reported population decline. We have also reduced the extent of conservation target areas to 11.5%, allowing to pinpoint locations for these future nest box colonies, and also provided a basis for future conservation measures like allocating monitoring efforts and designating future Natura 2000 sites in Serbia. bs_bs_banner Animal Conservation. Print ISSN 1367-9430 648 Animal Conservation 15 (2012) 648-657

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The distribution area and the timing of migration of many bird species have recently changed, presumably due to climatic factors. In our study, we estimated the effect of climate change on migration phenology and biometrics of two sister Sylvia species: the medium-distance migrant Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) and the long-distance migrant Garden Warbler (Sylvia borin). We used the data of 52,440 Blackcaps and 6,943 Garden Warblers caught and ringed at the Ó csa Bird Ringing Station (47°15 0 N, 19°15 0 E) in Hungary between 1984 and 2008. The age and in case of Blackcaps the sex groups were handled separately. The timing of the spring migration of Garden Warblers shifted earlier, whereas it did not change in Blackcaps during the study period. We presume-in accordance with other observations concerning Blackcaps in West-Europe-that it probably has changed earlier than the 1980s. The timing of autumn migration shifted about 2 weeks later in all age and sex groups of Blackcaps. We found significant correlation in the timing of autumn migration of sex groups, the sign of the differences between the timing of males and females changed. Juvenile Garden Warblers shifted their autumn migration 13 days later, but adults did not. Mean body mass decreased while mean wing length increased suggesting a change in the composition of the trans-migrant population. We hypothesise that due to climate change the breeding range of these species expanded northwards, producing an increased ratio of long-winged northern individuals in the trans-migrant populations.