Wintering phenology and site fidelity of European Robins (Erithacus rubecula) in an eastern Mediterranean wintering area (Aves: Passeriformes)

Abstract

The European Robin (Erithacus rubecula) is a partial migrant in Central Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean known as a wintering area. Little is known about the behaviour in the winter. I assessed the wintering phenology by using capture-recapture methods in a coastal area in southern Turkey. Over three wintering seasons, 76 European Robins were captured with mist-nets. Ten of them were recaptured in the following wintering seasons and another after two seasons. Recaptures peaked in November (26.5%) and December (26.5%) and then declined progressively to February (14.7%). Our results suggest a high level of site fidelity in the wintering area in subsequent years.

Keywords:

• Migration
• wintering
• capture-recapture
• Southern Turkey

Supplementary Material

Supplementary Material is given as a Supplementary Annex, available via the “Supplementary” tab on the article’s online page.

Acknowledgements

I thank the volunteers who helped during the field work, particularly R. Korkmaz, L. Özkan, A. Ateş and H. Simsar.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.