Recoveries by Condition for Eurasian Hoopoe

Most encounters are obtained after 2000. They come from mainly from the breeding season – 88% from the period May-Jul. Majority of encounters are recorded in C, SW and SC Europe – ca. 97% (80, 11 and 6% respectively). The encounters based on dead birds decreased from 61-68% before 1990 to 6% after 1991; those based on alive birds markedly increased over time – from 19% before 1960 to 93% after 1991. The latter is mostly due to ringing recoveries, including ringing at nestboxes (26% of all encounters).  Shooting was responsible for 25-29% of all encounters before 1990 but it almost disappeared as a source of recoveries after 1991.

Some of the distant (>=50 km) recoveries are nearly 3000km away from the ringing site.

Long-distance recoveries from sub-Saharan Africa are almost lacking.

Annual Movements for Eurasian Hoopoe

Post-breeding dispersal and autumn migration take place mostly Aug-Sep, the numbers progressively decrease onwards.

European breeding sites are reached back in Mar-May.

Tracked birds from the Swiss population are found to winter mostly in W Sahel, but low level of migratory connectivity has been found between their breeding and wintering areas; individual wintering sites differed between years (van Wijk et al. 2016). Some birds taking SW routes showed loop migration – staging in the region of Gibraltar mid-Aug/ early Sep, wintering in Mauritania/ W Mali for about 6 months (Sep-Mar) and spring migration passing eastwards, returning to the breeding sites early to mid-Apr (Bächler et al. 2010).

Weak spatial but strong temporal migratory connectivity has been found across four C European populations (van Wijk et al. 2018).

Connectivity by Month by Region for Eurasian Hoopoe

Dispersal and autumn migratory movements are mostly evident in late summer and early autumn, but small amount of birds are encountered as late as late autumn and single birds – even in winter (N to C & N Europe).  

N Africa is reached as early as late summer, mostly in early autumn. Birds stay in their wintering grounds in W Sahel about half a year (Bächler et al. 2010). Return movements start mid-winter to early spring. Within Europe, spring migration takes place mostly early to late spring.

Data from the isotope analyses supported the evidence that Spanish and Swiss breeders winter in W Sahel (Reichlin et al. 2013).

Median flight altitude during post-breeding migration was found to be ca. 1150m a.s.l., and ca. 1630m a.s.l. during pre-breeding migration; maximum altitude recorded was 4584 m a.s.l. (Liechti et al. 2018).