Studying winter populations of birds in the ecological farm of Algendaret

This winter, as the last five, our guide continues studying bird populations in the farm of Algendaret. This farm, situated on the outskirts of Maó, is one of the only ecological farms in the island. The cover vegetation is composed by extensive crops for caws, wild olives and ecological vegetables crops, shaping the typical agricultural landscape in mosaic of Menorca.
This study is included into a big project that the Menorca Ornithologist Society (SOM) carries out in the island, using the ringing as study method like the Constant Effort Site (CES) in UK or the Monitoring Avian Productivity (MAP) in the USA, or other similar projects in Spain like the SYLVIA from Grup Català d’Anellament (GCA) or the SACRE from Sociedad Española de Ornitología (SEO).
One of the main objectives of this study is contribute with new and actual knowledge about the ecology of the Menorca landscape, allowing management that does not conflict with conservation. Birds play a vital role as biological indicators in terrestrial ecosystems, where it is sometimes very difficult to prove the adverse effects of pollution, habitat change or other factors.
This December have begun the field days that they lasted until the end of February.  On the first day on 23 December, he obtained information about ten species: robin, black bird, son thrush, chiffchaff, blackcap, white wagtail, great tit, sardinian warbler, greenfinch and chaffinch; an others were detected into the farm: collared turtle dove, wood pigeon, house sparrow, hoopoe, kestrel, black redstart, cetti’s warbler and goldfinch. Many of these species spend the winter in Menorca like the robin, the song thrush or the white wagtail, and others are sedentary birds, with an important population in this farm, like the sardinian warbler or the great tit.
This day highlighted the abundance of song thrush, possibly due to the abundance of olives on the wild olives in the area. By contrast, draws attention to the low number of robins when compared with previous years, data detected during this fall and winter began in other parts of the island.