Owls (Collins New Naturalist Library, Book 125) by Toms Mike

Author:Toms, Mike [Toms, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2014-01-01T23:00:00+00:00

The influence of the wider landscape

The spatial clustering of owl–traffic collisions along particular sections of road is a feature of most studies, a pattern repeated for many other vertebrate families (Gunson et al., 2010). This suggests that wider landscape features may also have a role to play, contributing to collisions by bringing individuals into contact with the road or its immediate surroundings. Shawyer & Dixon (1999) found this to be the case for Barn Owls on the A303, and other British studies have found similar clustering in their results (e.g. Dunthorn & Errington, 1964). The lack of such clustering in some British studies (e.g. Ramsden, 2003) might be because these studies used casual reporting rather than systematic searches of a section of the road network. Shawyer & Dixon (1999) suggested that collision hotspots were linked to areas where grassy corridors associated with stream, river and ditch banks bisected the road. Tawny Owl traffic collisions in Iberia have been linked to hotspots where roads bisect high quality woodland habitats, with young Tawny Owls being killed during the period of dispersal as the young move through increasingly fragmented blocks of favoured habitat (Pereira et al., 2011). In north-eastern France, Long-eared Owls and Barn Owls were found dead more often on sections of road bordered by arable fields than the availability of this habitat would suggest had collisions occurred randomly with respect to surrounding habitat (Baudvin, 1997). Work in Portugal also highlights the association of Barn Owl collisions with grassland habitats of the sort likely to hold sizeable populations of Microtus voles (Gomes et al., 2009). The same study associated Little Owl collision hotspots with areas holding low densities of trees, such as olive orchards.

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