Struggle for safety: adaptive responses of wintering waders to their avian predators

摘要

Some decades ago, through use of pesticides, falcons and other shorebird predators had become quite rare in many intertidal areas throughout Europe. Since the end of the 1970s, through the banning of pesticides, a dramatic recovery set in. From then on, shorebirds in the Wadden Sea have progres-sively been confronted with falcons, at first only during the winter season, but increasingly also in spring and summer as falcons has established themselves as breeding birds. Nowadays, particularly in the non-breeding season, virtually no shorebird roost in the Wadden Sea escapes the attentions of one or two falcons. These attentions are not limited to the temperate regions, as the millions of shorebirds that migrate to their African winter quarters, such as Banc d'Arguin, Mauritania, are faced there with these specialised bird hunt-ers as well.