The study was carried out on 94 abandoned arable fields (0.1–83.5 ha) comprising a total area of 400 ha in the intensively farmed region of the Wrocław plain (54.8 km2, SW Poland). A total of 101 Whinchat territories were found in the study area, all of them in abandoned crop fields with a well-developed layer of dried perennials from the previous year (Tanacetum vulgare, Artemisia vulgaris, Solidago sp.). Whinchats occupied 56 (60%) of the 94 fields surveyed. The probability of a Whinchat occupying a particular field was closely related to its size: the probability of occupation was 50% in fields of about 1.8 ha, and rose to 100% in fields larger than 13 ha. Single males occupied thirty-eight territories (37.6%). The number of Whinchat territories per occupied abandoned field lay between 1 and 14. Thirty-three fields held only a single Whinchat territory. The density of Whinchat territories was negatively correlated with the size of an abandoned field. Single males inhabited the smallest fields.
How to translate text using browser tools
1 July 2004
Abandoned Cropland as a Habitat of the Whinchat Saxicola rubetra in SW Poland
Grzegorz Orłowski
Acta Ornithologica
Vol. 39 • No. 1
July 2004
Vol. 39 • No. 1
July 2004
abandoned fields
agriculture
habitat island
land use
nature conservation
Saxicola rubetra
set-aside