Calladine, J., Robertson, D. & Wernham, C. 2006. The ranging behaviour of some granivorous passerines on farmland in winter determined by mark-recapture ringing and by radiotelemetry. Ibis 148: 169-173

Abstract

Ringing and radiotelemetry are complementary techniques for studying bird movements (Marchant 2002). To date, for passerines, ringing has generally been focused on determining migration movements and between-year dispersal patterns, rather than measuring within-season ranging behaviours. Studies of ranging behaviour have tended to rely on the remote sensing of individual birds, notably by radiotelemetry. Granivorous passerines are small birds and thus telemetry of individuals necessitates the use of small transmitters: with current technology, the short active lifespan and restricted detection distances of such tags can compromise the value of attaching them to birds. Traditional analyses of radiotelemetry data require a large number of determined locations, or fixes: for example, at least 50 per individual are required to determine home ranges (e.g. Kenward 1987). An adequate number of fixes would only be obtained with small radios by using short sampling intervals, giving rise to problems of autocorrelation between points, or by replacing tags several times on the same individual. Here we (i) describe a mark–recapture approach to ringing that attempts to estimate the likelihood of movements of different distances within a winter, and (ii) contrast this approach with radiotracking of three species of granivorous passerine in winter. The first quantified measures of winter ranging distances for Yellowhammer Emberiza citronella , Chaffinch Fringilla coelebs and Tree Sparrow Passer montanus are presented.

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