Cyprus wheatears Oenanthe cypriaca likely reach sub‐Saharan African wintering grounds in a single migratory flight

Abstract

Long‐distance migratory flights with multiple stop‐overs, multiple wintering sites, and small‐scale connectivity in Afro‐Palearctic migrants are likely to increase their vulnerability to environmental change and lead to declining populations. Here we present the migration tracks and wintering locations of the first six Cyprus wheatears to be tracked with geolocators: a species with high survival and a stable population. We therefore predicted a non‐stop flight from Cyprus to sub‐Saharan wintering grounds, a single wintering area for each individual and a wide spread of wintering locations representing low migratory connectivity at the population level. The sub‐Saharan wintering grounds in south Sudan, Sudan and Ethiopia were likely reached by a single flight of an average straight‐line distance of 2538 km in ca 60 h, with an average minimum speed of 43.1 km h–1. The high speed of migration probably ruled out stop‐overs greater than a few hours. Cyprus wheatears migrated from Cyprus in mid‐late October and most probably remained at a single location throughout winter; three out of five birds with available data may have used a second site < 100 km away during February; all returned between 7–22 March when accurate geolocation data are not possible due to the equinox. Wintering locations were spread over at least 950 km. There were no tag effects on survival. Cyprus wheatears showed a migratory strategy in accordance with their observed high survival rate and demonstrated a routine flight range that allows much of the Mediterranean and the Sahara to be crossed in a rapid two and a half‐day flight.

Finish with a sprint: Evidence for time‐selected last leg of migration in a long‐distance migratory songbird

“…The Afro‐Palearctic bird migration system comprises of temperate and tropical–subtropical zones which are separated by a large ecological barrier—the Sahara Desert. Recent evidence from tracking studies shows rapid desert crossing by small passerines (Adamík et al., ; Ouwehand & Both, ; Xenophontos, Blackburn, & Cresswell, ), including the collared flycatcher, with the main stopovers typically found before the barrier crossing (Briedis, Beran, Hahn, & Adamík, ; Risely, Blackburn, & Cresswell, ). Thus, comparing migration speeds and durations prior and after the desert crossing allows for insights into migratory strategies over different legs of the migration journey.…”

Movements of Cyprus Wheatear Oenanthe cypriaca fledglings: evidence of a post-fledging home range away from the natal site prior to first migration

“…There was also no strong suggestion during the tracking period that fledgling locations were associated with large landscape features that would assist them with return navigation to their natal area (see Mitchell et al 2010): locations looked and in many cases were identical to adult breeding territories scattered throughout the study site. Cyprus Wheatears fledge from June onwards, but do not leave Cyprus on migration until late October (Xenophontos et al 2017; and this also applies to juveniles, unpublished data). Therefore, it is possible that Cyprus Wheatear fledglings moved to identify migration homing targets at a larger scale after the tracking period finished.…”

“…All tagged individuals moved to potentially suitable breeding areas in the sense that all areas were typical breeding habitat and were part of breeding adult territories at least once during the longer term, ten year study (Fig. S1, Xenophontos and Cresswell 2016a,b;Xenophontos et al 2017).…”

“…Here, we measure the post-fledging movements of Cyprus Wheatear, Oenanthe cypriaca, to determine whether they are consistent with the prospecting for future breeding locations hypothesis. Cyprus Wheatears are widespread and common migrants (Randler et al 2010) endemic to Cyprus (Randler et al 2012) that winter in sub-Saharan East Africa from southern Sudan to Ethiopia (Xenophontos et al 2017). Measuring space use during the post-fledging period and territory adoption the following year is much more tractable than in many systems.…”

Regional wind patterns likely shape a seasonal migration detour

“…Here we include the spring migration for those tagged birds and an additional year of data for replication. In 2017 we fitted geolocators following that same methods as in Blackburn et al (2016) and Xenophontos et al (2017). We deployed Biotrack ML6740 Mk6 geolocators with 5 mm light stalks fixed at an angle 45° and used legloop harnesses made from 0.8 mm diameter transparent elastic cord (Rappole 1991).…”