Aron Tanti

Breeding in open forests, and wooded and edged grasslands across Europe, from North Africa to West of the Urals, reaching southern Fennoscandia. Resident in South Europe -from Spain, France to Greece), it is migratory from West and Central Europe and further east. Listed in Appendix I of the EU Birds Directive.

Season of assessment

B

Population trendDecreasing
Population size
(min-max, best estimate)		4290000-9130000,6010000
Red List categoryLC
Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, Ambrosini, R, Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N, Hammond, M., Higgins, D, Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F, Thorup, K. Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R. (1) (2022) Online Atlas of the movements of European bird populations. https://migrationatlas.org EURING/CMS (1) Principal investigator
Map

Overall Connectivity for Woodlark

In migratory populations, overall direction of migration is from the NE to the SW. In regions where the species is present year-round, e.g. in North-West, West and South-West Europe, the same direction is predominant, but other movements are noted in any directions, though at shorter distances. Individuals tagged in the Netherlands were all migratory and wintered in Western France (‘Zomer 2016’). The connectivity is will structure along parallel ‘lines’, e.g. with birds from Central Europe, especially Hungary, moving to Italy, birds from Germany moving to south-western France, Dutch birds moving to north-western France, etc.

Recoveries by Condition for Woodlark

Despite the species being no game bird, there are numerous dead recoveries of birds shot, though this changed after 1990 to nearly 90% of live recoveries, which constitutes the main data flow analysed here. Dead recoveries are from Spain, France and Italy.

Annual Movements for Woodlark

In South Finland, autumn migration occurs from the second decade of September to the end of October, with a peak at the shift between the two months (‘Lindén and Mäntyniemi 2011’). For the tagged Dutch birds, autumn migration lasted on average three weeks, spring migration two weeks (‘Zomer 2016’) The distance to the wintering grounds was roughly 800 kilometres, which is quite similar to the second peak of ringing recovery distances, but most ringing recoveries are at shorter distances, so probably obtained during movements or from more southern and more sedentary populations.

Connectivity by Month by Region for Woodlark

Woodlarks of Central Europe are back in their region by April. Birds from southern Sweden and Finland have been recovered mainly in October in West Europe, so were probably still on move to further southern wintering destinations. Recoveries in West Europe, especially in north-western France, are mainly obtained in winter months, while recoveries in the South-West region are mainly dead recoveries obtained in October and November, representing captures by hunters during active movements, probably close to the wintering grounds. As a consequence, monthly connectivity is hardly assessed beyond the general patterns described here.

Frédéric Jiguet

References

Statistics Map
N records N individuals N recoveries
Mapped data*
Total available data
*Mapped data include only distant (>= 50 km) recoveries
References Map
Lindén, A., Mäntyniemi, S.2011 . Using the negative binomial distribution to model overdispersion in ecological count data. Ecology 92 Link to Article (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1890/10-1831.1) : 1414–1421
Zomer, H.2016 . No evidence for partial migration in two partial migrants. Migratory strategies of Dutch sky- and woodlarks. https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/13759/1/MSc_thesis_Zomer_2016.pdf

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