Conservation of Red-footed Falcon – roosting sites monitoring in 2007

Same to the previous year’s routine this autumn regular observations and counting have been made at some places used by falcons traditionally for roosting, in order to a better understanding of dynamics of the target species in this pre-migratory period. The counting issues in Romania were synchronized (Wednesday evening and/or Thursday dawning) with those made in Hungary for avoiding inaccurate data as a result of possibilities to count the same bird twice. Compared to the previous year we’ve found two another main roosting sites which seem to be used traditionally by Red-footed Falcons.

Three important sites are in the Banat region:

1. Uivar – the road-side poplars between Uivar and Pustiniș are well known for a few years as roosting site. This year a new rookery appeared here and 4 pairs of Red-footed Falcons breed also.
2. The hybrid poplars from Livezile (closed to Banloc) have been found this year as roosting site. There is also a rookery bur is not known if any Red-footed Falcon breeds here as this place was found after the end of the breeding period.
3. The strangest place was found at Vălcani. This clump made by some white and pyramidal poplar and bushes also lies in fact in Serbia (close to the town of Mokrin) at 50m from the Romanian border near a disused railway and the falcons used to be hunt in Romania around Vălcani and Dudeștii Vechi. In this place a color-ringed juvenile was also identified in 4th October, the bird was ringed by our Hungarian colleagues appr. 50km far from here to North.

This year also a roosting site far away from our project area was visited. According to the information of Sebastian Bugariu and Sándor D. Attila the forest patches which lie between Murighiol and Plopu (just near the Danube Delta, Dobrudja) last year were used by up to 5-600 Red-footed Falcons for roosting. The fact that we’ve found birds here even this year proves that this also should be a traditional roosting site.

* Numărătoare efectuată dimineața târziu, acuratețe redusă