looduskalender.ee

On the home page of the bird of the year:

www.eoy.ee/ogijad

the collection of sightings of wintering grey shrikes now continues. We welcome all observations, beginning from November 10 and until the end of the year, submitted on a simple form on the web.

 

In a few weeks a short summary of the observations from January and February will be ready. Interesting numbers from the start of the year are for instance these:

 

1. 163 observation reports were submitted; at least 120 individual birds were observed.

2. The greatest number of grey shrikes were seen in western Estonia, quite as expected: Saaremaa (20 individuals), Läänemaa (18  ind.) and Pärnumaal (14 ind.).

3. The biotopes where shrikes were mainly observed in the beginning of the year were:

- courtyards of houses/farms (65 observations, 40% of total)

- cultured field/grassland (25 observations, 16%)

- fallow field (20 observations, 12,5%)

4. The winter mapping of the shrikes was carried out in 9 monitoring areas, located in 7 different counties. One third of these areas turned out to be 0 areas.

The monitoring areas had an average winter population density of grey shrikes of 5 individuals per 100 square kilometres (in determining the population density large forest areas were deducted from the observation area; thus the population density is valid for open and semi-open landscapes).

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