2017 Western Palearctic Big Year (17 Viewers)

[jurek]

Maybe I was not clear. My original question was about introduced populations of Common Pheasant: which ones are truly able to persist long-term without hunting management? Common experience of hunters is that when management is lessened, within few years pheasants are visibly declining to a local extinction. This suggest Common Pheasant are often not cat. C at all. My interest was if there was ever a systematic research which Common Pheasant populations in Europe truly qualify are cat C., and which are cat E.

 

[Nutcracker]

Maybe I was not clear. My original question was about introduced populations of Common Pheasant: which ones are truly able to persist long-term without hunting management? Common experience of hunters is that when management is lessened, within few years pheasants are visibly declining to a local extinction. This suggest Common Pheasant are often not cat. C at all. My interest was if there was ever a systematic research which Common Pheasant populations in Europe truly qualify are cat C., and which are cat E.

I understood, and in general, suspect it's true, but I don't know if any research has been done. It certainly doesn't help that released birds are clueless about things like survival skills, road safety and parenting - add them to an area, and they dilute out the better-skilled feral populations from earlier times. Probably a good way to eradicate an existing feral population, actually.

Of course there's also the question, if releases stop, does the shooting pressure also stop as well?

 

[Maffong]

I don't think any research has been done, but you could ask the same question for Grey Partridge, as well as genetic purity of Quail, Eagle-Owl or Peregrine at least in central europe...

 

[Andy Adcock]

I don't think any research has been done, but you could ask the same question for Grey Partridge, as well as genetic purity of Quail, Eagle-Owl or Peregrine at least in central europe...

That's not the same at all, all the species you name are native species, Common pheasant isn't and genetic purity isn't the same as artificially enhanced populations?


A

 

[Maffong]

Of course it's not the same thing, however if applied very strictly it would lead to the same thing: Categorization in E.

I know an Eagle-Owl that is readily visited by dozens of birders and of course counted in life and year lists even though it was released some 15-20 (?) years ago at the site. It has bred many times and raised many young which have probably colonized the area. If we applied the same criteria to these species as we apply to Cat C species we'd have to be MUCH more careful in counting them. I don't want to know how many of the Grey Partridges here were actually released by hunters and thus can't actually be counted.

 

[Th. Stegmann]

Just some thoughts about the 'off-topic' Pheasant-questions

which ones are truly able to persist long-term without hunting management?

To ask: Which one of lots of other farmland breeding birds in most part of Europe are able to persist long-term (without nature conservation efforts)?

As for Germany the breeding atlas of Schleswig-Holstein explained that the county-populations had a light increase in the period 2005-09 in comparison to the period of 1984-94. Mass-releases of Pheasants had stopped in the late 1970s. In the same time the number of hunted Pheasants had an equal decline. If one consider the estimated population of about 11.500 "breeding pairs" (2005-09; I suppose that means the estimated number of territorial males...) and consider the hunting stretch of about 10.000 birds/year, that seems to be an high number of killed birds. But there were still releases of Pheasants to the wild of unknown numbers after the hunting saison. Considering the massive change in agriculture with intensification and dramatic loss of suitable habitats for all farmland breeding birds (also the Pheasant), I come to my personal conclusion, that they are doing quiet fine in Schleswig-Holstein as breeding birds, especially in comparion to other species like Grey Partridge, Skylark and so on... So therefore, if all influences were band (hunting, release, land change and so on), I suppose the Pheasant would have no problem to survive as a C1-candidate in Schleswig-Holstein.

One more thought to the subject: In the given situation we are, and if e.g. Gray Partridge, Skylark, Black-tailed Godwit, Lapwing... with there massive decline in recent years - despite all the nature conservation efforts - were not native, noone would come to the idea, that these species might fulfill the C1-criterias nowadays.

Best regards!

PS: Glad to read the three Swedes have at last found there way to Germany ;-) Althougt the Albatross as "german entry in the big year" would be much more glamorous, than (of all) these domestic geese... a shame!

 

[Maffong]

Back in 2015 Noah Strycker also had a short stop-over in germany, guess what he added: Egyptian Goose.

Seems like germany is the place you go tick off plastics

 

[Th. Stegmann]

Back in 2015 Noah Strycker also had a short stop-over in germany, guess what he added: Egyptian Goose.

Seems like germany is the place you go tick off plastics

Yes, I know. But at least he tried for Grey-headed Woodpecker in the short time as a native species! Seems that we have reached an all time low as a birding destination

 

[Jos Stratford]

Seems that we have reached an all time low as a birding destination

But at least the locals still have a sense of humour :t:

 

[Selsey Birder]

If seen in Azerbaijan, yes then they could count it. However I doubt they'll return to the region this year.

Instead of the Amur Falcon they got an ALMOST equally as awesome new species: Swan Goose!!! You guys can't believe how envious I am...

Hi Paul,

I have kept an excel document of their year using your categorisation from the beginning of the year. naturally, you did not include Swan Goose in that list, any thoughts on how you would "rate" the species- ridiculous though it sounds maybe a 3, although despite the very restricted range could a 2 be argued?

Ian

 

[Paul Chapman]

Hi Paul,

I have kept an excel document of their year using your categorisation from the beginning of the year. naturally, you did not include Swan Goose in that list, any thoughts on how you would "rate" the species- ridiculous though it sounds maybe a 3, although despite the very restricted range could a 2 be argued?

Ian

Maffong and I had slightly different categorisations. On mine, I would go 3.

I intend to revise my thoughts at the end of the year as I think Maffng's approach in some areas is better.

This year list has also really helped me understand a few of the distributions better.

All the best

 

[Jon Turner]

Clearly trying for the Elegant Tern at least! But having to take second prize with Reeve's Pheasant in France.

 

[Maffong]

What the heck?! They went to Stuttgart and forgot Yellow-headed Amazon?!
And why try for the french Elegant Tern, when they are breeding in Spain? Couldn't Reeve's Pheasant be targeted further south? What populations are actually tickable?

For codes and more see this completely up to date spreadsheet. Note that there are a few hidden columns, as e.g. column E with Pauls codes

 

[flownek]

Did they dip the bloody Amazon in Stuttgart? Can't see it in their species list.

 

[Pedro Ramalho]

Back in 2015 Noah Strycker also had a short stop-over in germany, guess what he added: Egyptian Goose.

Seems like germany is the place you go tick off plastics

For once I’m really glad that Portugal is way behind Germany on something!!

At least on the ranking of the countries it more plastic we can be happy to be way behind some countries like Germany, Holland and England… lol

 

[Frenchy]

Did they dip the bloody Amazon in Stuttgart? Can't see it in their species list.

No, they saw it. Apparently igoterra have missed it from their WP checklist, or something like that.

 

[Muppit17]

Clearly trying for the Elegant Tern at least! But having to take second prize with Reeve's Pheasant in France.

Am I the only one confused about Reeve's Pheasant? I checked back to Holland clean-up where they pulled out of going for the birds around Calais as they weren't tickable and then 4 months later they are ticking the untickable. What's changed?

 

[Captain_of_Crunch]

Am I the only one confused about Reeve's Pheasant? I checked back to Holland clean-up where they pulled out of going for the birds around Calais as they weren't tickable and then 4 months later they are ticking the untickable. What's changed?

Proximity? 8-P

Looking at their list, it looks like they have dipped the Elegant Tern. The last sighting uploaded was of a Carrion Crow at 8pm back near the German border. Where are they off to next?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Am I the only one confused about Reeve's Pheasant? I checked back to Holland clean-up where they pulled out of going for the birds around Calais as they weren't tickable and then 4 months later they are ticking the untickable. What's changed?

I presume that they targeted a different population or alternatively their information on the original population was updated. I'm sure they'll elucidate in due course. Any updates on their blog or Facebook?

All the best

 

[Maffong]

Half of the people who have ticked Reeve's Pheasant in the netfugl ranking did so in Forêt d'Hesdin, which is in the general region of Calais, so maybe they thought 'If everybody else counts them here, why shouldn't we'. I'm sure they'll explain their reasoning in the next blog update.

I imagine that they went there in hope for the Elegant Tern and if the Amur Falcon had been relocated theyd have taken the ferry over to the UK and twitched it. They didn't have luck with either species.

By the way I can now spill the beans (they wanted to keep it secret when they asked me for some intel) that they were going to try for the Albatross too if it had still been there after some family birthdays. Turns out they were just a tiny little bit too late and now it's probably gone for real. But after all they at least considered to give it a shot