A study of wintering Kestrels in the Cote-d'Or, Burgundy, France

摘要

A study of wintering Kestrels in the Cote-d'Or, Burgundy, France. A study was conducted from 1992 to 2005 on an hilly area of 411,8 km(2) composed of pastures, crop fields and forests in Cote-d'Or (Burgundy, Eastern France) using exhaustive road transect counts and ringing programme in order to assess the composition, status and space use of a wintering population of Kestrels. As main results, we found similar proportions of both sexes and more adults in the population. Density of Kestrels decreased from November to February but did not depend on habitat types or weather conditions. Spatial distribution of Kestrels was rather aggregative. According to ringing data (n = 204 birds), breeding population seemed mostly resident with a weak proportion of Nordic birds wintering in the area. The composition and size of the population appeared stable over the whole study period.