The importance of the Maldives as a wintering ground for migratory birds of the Central Asian flyway

Titelangaben

Steibl, Sebastian ; Laforsch, Christian:
The importance of the Maldives as a wintering ground for migratory birds of the Central Asian flyway.
In: Journal of Asian Ornithology. Bd. 37 (2021) . - S. 80-87.
ISSN 0950-1746

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Abstract

Among the world’s major migratory corridors, research on the Central/South Asian flyways is comparably underrepresented, and little is known about the bird communities of the islands in the Indian Ocean and their relevance for bird migration. Here, we present the first systematic study of a migratory bird assemblage on an island in the Maldives based on data collected over two consecutive non-breeding seasons, using field transect counts conducted on a daily basis. We recorded a total of 22 bird species (11% of all documented species from the Maldives), of which 40% were long-distance migratory species. Most migratory species were waders (Charadriiformes: Charadriidae and Scolopacidae) and were only observed on the narrow sandy beaches which they use as stopover and foraging sites. The inland and urban habitats of the surveyed Maldivian island were only inhabited by resident Maldivian breeding birds. By regularly observing bird species that were thus far considered rare or uncommon, we suggest that certain migratory species more commonly occur on the coralline islands of the Maldives than previously considered, albeit not in large numbers. As many migratory species on the Central Asian flyway are in decline or already globally threatened, our study provides relevant preliminary information about the occurrence of migratory birds on remote islands in the Indian Ocean which will be relevant to future cross-national conservation actions.