In recent decades, the establishment of plantations to produce biomass for energy, known as short rotation coppice (SRC), has been increasing in many countries in Europe. As with other tree plantations, these stands could enhance the structural diversity of intensively managed farmlands and consequently lead to an increase in animal diversity. In this study, we examined the effects of hybrid poplar SRCs on breeding bird richness, diversity and abundance in Northern Italy. We recorded bird species and estimated their abundances using point counts. We then analysed the relationships between landscape composition and bird abundances, as well as community composition, using canonical correspondence analysis. The results showed that birds abundances in SRCs were generally lower than in woodland and arable land (SRC: 1.30 birds/km², woodland: 2.57, arable land: 1.89), and the same was true for species richness (SRC: 7.06 species/km², woodland: 12.90, arable land: 9.13) and species diversity (Shannon Indices in SRC: 0.951, woodland: 1.606, arable land: 1.241). Half of the species found in SRC are considered farmland birds, a group whose species richness was significantly higher than that of forest and generalist species. Our research suggests that a system with rotational harvesting of mixed age and structure stands enhances habitat heterogeneity and consequently could support bird communities. In particular, SRCs and reforestations seem to play an important role for some birds by providing them with complementary or supplementary habitat for foraging and nesting.

Loss and fragmentation of natural and semi-natural vegetation caused by agricultural intensification are related to many declines in shrubland bird populations, but they have received little conservation attention and research effort. In the Llanos de Ojuelos, a semiarid agricultural landscape in Mexico, patches of natural shrubland and nopal (or prickly pear) Opuntia spp. orchards harbour 60% of the regional avifauna, but prior to this study their value as nesting habitat for birds has not been assessed. In 2014 we recorded 143 nests of 25 species, 45% of which were of Mourning Doves Zenaida macroura. The nesting birds recorded account for 38% of all species known to use these habitats in this region and the number of nesting species is larger than in other North American semiarid and arid shrublands. Shrublands and orchards were not different in any habitat attributes measured, nor in the densities of nests found in them, but there were significantly more species nesting in shrublands. Nest height and visibility were not different between habitats, except for Mourning Doves, which nested at a lower height in orchards. Neither attribute affected nest success, except for in Black-chinned Sparrow Spizella atrogularis for whom successful nests were less visible. The assemblages of nesting birds might be explained better by particular plants used as nest substrate than by habitat attributes. Catclaws Mimosa aculeaticarpa var. biuncifera, Huisaches Vachellia farnesiana and V. schaffneri and nopal plants supported 56% of all nests, the latter being particularly important for Mourning Doves, while scarce Central-Mexico Yucca Yucca decipiens trees supported 40% of nesting species. There were interspecific differences in the phenology of nesting, which matched the feeding requirements of the young. Nopal orchards seem to provide abundant complementary food for birds that nest in shrubland patches. Nopal orchards and shrubland patches dotting the landscape may make the dominant agricultural matrix of the southern part of the Central Plateau of Mexico less detrimental to shrubland birds. Our study supports the idea that small patches of secondary shrubland can aid in biodiversity conservation in anthropized landscapes, a role that in this region is provided by shrubland remnant patches as well as nopal orchards.

West African Slender-billed Gulls Chroicocephalus genei are considered vulnerable due to a very restricted breeding range. However, little information on their ecology is available to support conservation action. We describe diet and foraging range of Slender-billed Gulls breeding in the Saloum Delta National Park in Senegal. Diet was analysed on the basis of fish otoliths in excretion (mixture of pellets and faeces) collected near nests at the end of the incubation period between 2000 and 2015. Gulls mainly consumed fish of the families Cichlidae (25–93%), Clupeidae (0–54%) and Mugilidae (0–34%). The log-ratio proportion of Mugilidae increased significantly between 2000 and 2015, but there was no significant trend for other prey taxa. In 2014, UvA-BiTS GPS-trackers were fitted to three Slender-billed Gulls to study movement and foraging range. During daytime, these gulls spent 27% of their time incubating the eggs, 10% elsewhere in the colony and 63% outside the colony on foraging trips. Foraging trips lasted on average 18 ± 9.5 (±SD) hours. Total distance covered was on average 96 ± 39 km with a maximum distance to the colony of 37 ± 13 km. There were marked and consistent individual differences in the flight paths of the gulls. In two birds, foraging mainly took place in mangrove-bordered lagoons, salt pans, creeks, rivers and a complex of abandoned rice fields. The third bird almost exclusively explored the Atlantic coast near a fishing village in The Gambia. The home range and the foraging area of the three birds together measured 2400 and 1800 km², respectively. The diet components found near the nests of the three birds could only partly be related to their foraging areas.

The Azores Woodpigeon Columba palumbus azorica is considered an endemic subspecies and is currently listed in the Annex I of the EU Birds Directive. However, despite its status, the bird has rarely been studied and is classified as ‘Data Deficient’ in the Portuguese Red Data Book. Herewith, we present the first results on the breeding biology of this subspecies, based on data collected from November 2012 to October 2014 on Terceira Island. Data were obtained by monitoring nests, and additional information on breeding phenology was provided during regular counts from 100 points distributed over the island. Fifty-four nests were found mainly in exotic trees, suggesting that the species does not depend on the highly degraded native laurel forest for nesting. Egg-laying occurred from late-February to late-September, reaching its peak in May; the main laying period lasted 140 days from 1 April to 19 August. Mean clutch size (±SE) was 1.77 ± 0.06 eggs (range 1–2 eggs) and did not vary with time. Overall breeding success, calculated using the Mayfield method, was amongst the lowest ever detected for this species across its breeding range: 0.091 ± 0.048 (SE). Extreme weather events and predation by introduced mammals are likely to explain high nest failure. The population is likely to have undergone a period of growth since 1992, following a period in the 1960's when the bird was very scarce in the Archipelago due to hunting pressure. In recent years, farmers have increasingly complained to the Regional Government about damage to crops, including vineyards, caused by the Azores Woodpigeon on some of the Azorean islands.

Supernormal clutches are found across bird species. Such clutches often result from more than one female laying eggs in the same nest and can reflect different behaviours from parasitism to laying mistakes. Enlarged clutches are readily visible among waders due to a maximum maternal clutch size of four eggs, yet surprisingly little is known about this phenomenon. Since supernormal clutches are rare, large sample sizes are required to reliably quantify their natural frequencies. We used a large dataset to estimate the frequency of supernormal clutches in the polygamous Temminck's Stint Calidris temminckii and the monogamous Southern Dunlin C. alpina schinzii, and examine the timing of supernormal clutches in relation to the general distribution of nest initiation dates. While supernormal clutches were very rare, they were over four times more common in the Temminck's Stint (0.50%, n = 1594) than in the Southern Dunlin (0.11%, n = 2766). Dunlin show among the lowest frequency of supernormal clutches reported for waders. In the Temminck's Stint, supernormal clutches were found in the middle of the season, while in the Southern Dunlin such clutches occurred in late season replacement nests. The higher rate and timing of enlarged clutches in Temminck's Stints probably relates to the lspecies' breeding system, which can include simultaneous courtship of multiple partners, but more work is needed to assess the relative influence of different factors. We argue that intraspecific nest parasitism is unlikely to be a primary reproductive tactic in small sandpipers.

Markham's Storm-Petrel Oceanodroma markhami is one of the least known seabirds in the world. Between 2013 and 2017, we conducted an extensive ground based survey to locate nests, confirm nesting colonies and, whenever possible, characterize Markham's Storm-Petrel breeding phenology. The survey was conducted in the Atacama Desert, northern Chile, covering the area between Arica (18.240°S, 70.509°W) and Taltal (25.050°S, 70.486°W). Our study led to the discovery of two new colonies and to a six-fold increase in the estimate of the breeding population at the previously known Arica colony: a more accurate estimate of 55,308 pairs. Prior to this study, 9362 breeding pairs were known to occur in two colonies. Currently, the colonies of Arica (34,684 nests), Pampa La Perdiz (624 nests) and Salar Grande (20,000 nests) represent almost 95% of the known breeding population. We found that the colony of Arica has a different breeding phenology to that of the Pampa Perdiz and Salar Grande colonies, which could be due to differences in their food phenology. None of the colonies lie within designated protected areas and they strongly overlap with current and planned mining, wind farms and power plants in northern Chile. Apart from the disturbance caused by destruction of habitat and nests, these developments are also important sources of artificial light that cause the grounding of fledglings, after which many of them probably die from the collision impact or predation. It is vital to ensure the conservation of this species by protecting their breeding grounds and by reducing the light pollution not only in the colonies, but also at the access points to the colonies and at the big cities nearby.

The Cinereous Vulture Aegypius monachus is a near threatened raptor that occurs in isolated populations across its range. The only comprehensive genetic study performed so far excluded samples from Turkey, although this area forms a significant part of the species' range. In this study, we used 311 bp long sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome b gene from 58 Turkish individuals to assess genetic diversity and phylogeny, and to determine if any signals for population expansion exist. Our phylogenetic analyses indicate that the Turkish birds hold, along with those from the Caucasus, an intermediate position between European (Balkan and Iberian) and North Asian (Mongolian) lineages. Our findings also demonstrate extremely low mitochondrial diversity and suggest no population expansion. Despite the low genetic diversity found in this study, other mtDNA gene regions and other nuclear markers should be evaluated together with the current results, before any kind of conservation action plan of this species is applied.

Although previous studies have reported on rare nesting behaviour such as nest reuse and/or unusual nest construction in open nesting passerines, very little is known about these rare phenomena. We found and monitored 1224 Great Reed Warbler nests between 2008 and 2017. In three nests, we found reuse of nests in the same season; two nests were reused after a Cuckoo chick had disappeared and one nest was reused after a damaged egg had been ejected. In two other nests, we observed that replacement nests were built directly under the original nest, using the same reed stems. These observations suggest that there may be cases when breeding Great Reed Warblers benefit from performing unusual yet adaptive behaviour, such as conserving energy and time when nests are reused, or recognizing the advantages of original nests, e.g. they may serve as cover and/or concealment.

Competition for nest sites is relatively common amongst burrow-nesting Procellariiformes, especially on some sub-Antarctic islands where there is limited availability of good burrow-nesting habitat. Where space is limited, petrels may even successfully share a common burrow entrance or nest chamber and burrow densities can reach >7000 burrows/ha. Interspecies burrow competition and chick evictions generally occur as a result of an overlap in breeding seasons, yet there are few documented records of this behaviour and even within study colonies many evictions are unconfirmed or probably go undetected. Here we report on interactions among three burrow-nesting petrels (White-chinned Petrels Procellaria aequinoctialis, Grey Petrels P. cinerea and Great-winged Petrels Pterodroma macroptera) at Marion Island which we observed through regular nest checks with a burrowscope and using infra-red video cameras inside burrow chambers. Despite relatively low petrel densities, White-chinned Petrels were responsible for 17% (8/46) of the Great-winged Petrel chick mortalities over the five breeding seasons (3% of the breeding attempts), but two were also recorded feeding Great-winged Petrel chicks. A pair of White-chinned Petrels evicted a Grey Petrel chick, but then had their own chick killed by Grey Petrels the following season, who went on to breed successfully in the same burrow. Feral Cats Felis catus were eradicated in 1991 and the greatly reduced petrel populations are slowly recovering, which could exacerbate competition for burrows on Marion.

Domestic Cat Felis silvestris catus populations have been increasing since the 1970s in Western Europe. This increase is particularly notable in human habitats, such as gardens and parks, where Cats have locally become the most abundant carnivore. In urban contexts, understanding Cat behaviour could be important for biodiversity management. In this study, we analysed Cat predation on garden birds, using existing data from ringing programmes in France and Belgium. These types of data permit us to (1) investigate the bird species killed by Cats, (2) analyse changes in the proportion of birds killed by Cats over the years 2000–2015, and (3) compare the causes of bird mortality as reported by observers. The most affected species were passerines, both granivorous and insectivorous (Europian Robin Erithacus rubecula, Dunnock Prunella modularis, Greenfinch Carduelis chloris), who can frequently be found feeding on the ground or visiting feeders in the winter. Perched birds (Chiffchaff Phylloscopus collybita, Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla) were less represented. Ground-dwelling habits were significantly correlated to predation rates. Between 2000 and 2015, Cat-related mortality in garden birds increased by at least 50%, depending on the ringing programme studied, which coincided with an increase in Cat populations. Cat-related mortality is one of the leading causes of death reported by observers (12.8–26.3% of total dead birds) and occurs at the same order of magnitude as deaths due to collisions with windows. These results underline the need to consider Cats and their potential impacts on urban biodiversity management at garden and urban levels.

We describe interspecific and intraspecific kleptoparasitic behaviour in Mallards Anas platyrhynchos, attempting to steal Zebra Mussels Dreissena polymorpha from other Mallards and Eurasian Coots Fulica atra. Both Coots and Mallards were most often attacked by Mallards perpetrating kleptoparasitic attacks when they handled large or intermediate-sized prey items. The probability of attack was nearly halved when the foraging birds had small versus large prey items in their bills. The overall probability of success of a kleptoparasitic attack was lowest when the attacked birds had small prey items, but higher if they had intermediate or large prey items. Kleptoparasitic attacks carried out on Coots were more often successful than those on Mallards. The results suggest that the optimal foraging theory, where animals tend to maximize net benefits, may be applicable to kleptoparasitic behaviour.