New Sociable lapwing staging post discovered

Birds fly through Turkey on their way to India

November 2010: New staging posts on the sociable lapwings migration from the breeding grounds of Kazakhstan to India have been found by Turkish researchers from Doga Dernegi (BirdLife in Turkey), who have been carefully monitoring the birds' progress.

At the end of September, DD staff found two flocks of 30 birds at a known staging site on the Erzurum Plain and a large flock of nearly 500 had reached another well-known stopover, Ceylanpinar near the Syrian border on their way south from their breeding grounds in Kazakhstan.


The RSPB, which has also been following the birds' progress, had a satellite transmission from Erzhan, one of nine tagged sociable lapwings, indicating it was near Patnos in central Turkey. However, it was thought he was simply passing through, as on-the-ground researchers could find no flocks when they scoured the area.

Only five sociable lapwings were found near Patnos during the next few days, but as the searches widened to Malazgirt and Bulanlik Plain, a flock of 101 was discovered, and just a day later a large flock of 554 were also found nearby - the largest gathering of migrating sociable lapwings encountered so far this autumn. Erzhan was not part of the flock, but he had pointed the way, helping DD discover another important new staging site in eastern Turkey.

Two routes to India rather than one?
With no further reports of lapwings from the Mus Plain during the following two weeks, the birds had been thought to have passed south through a central corridor in Turkey but then two further groups were found, the first in Ceylanpinar as expected and the other at a site in the Akcakale Plain in the north east, which has previously been known only as a spring migration staging site.

Now researchers are hypothsising that the birds may take two distinct routes through Turkey and are hoping to confirm this in due course. DD researchers hypothesize that there might be two distinct routes taken by Sociable Lapwings moving through Turkey which we hope to bring you further news about, if this can be established, in due course.

The first birds to be seen arrive at their final destination, were four sociable lapwings photographed by enthusiast Surat Singh Poonia at the Tal Chhapar WildLife Sanctuary in Rajasthan at the end of October.

As well as being the first record this year of sociable lapwings returning to winter in India it is also the first time sociable lapwings have been seen at the site since 1998.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/sociable-lapwing929.html