Effect of flooding on palearctic migrant birds at the eilat stopover site in israel

Zduniak P., Yosef R., Tryjanowski P.: Effect of flooding on Palearctic migrant birds at the Eilat stopover site in Israel. Ekoldgia (Bratislava), Vol. 28, No. 3, p. 291-299,2009. Recently, populations of long-distance migrant birds breeding in temperate regions and wintering in tropical Africa have shown a stronger decline than short-distance migrant or resident species. Among many other factors, the situation at stopover sites can strongly influence the migratory capability of populations. By comparison with the three previous years and one subsequent year, here we present information of how a single catastrophic event, the great flood early in spring 2006, destroyed an ecosystem at the globally recognized and important stopover point at Eilat, Israel. Overall, during the five spring migration seasons a total of 33 293 individuals of 103 pas-serine bird species were recorded. The largest number was in 2005 - 80 species, then 2004 - 78, 2003 - 73 and only 68 species in 2006 and 67 in 2007. In general, the number of individuals from particular species differed between seasons and the number of birds recorded in 2006 was lower than in 2003,2004 or 2005 and did not differ from the number obtained in,2007. Moreover there were no differences between the years 2003-2005 and 2007. However, the strongest effect was noted for species that winter only in Africa.