Quantitative analysis of bird migration over Israel


SOCIETY FOR INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY
2021 VIRTUAL ANNUAL MEETING (VAM)
January 3 – Febuary 28, 2021

Meeting Abstract


78-6  Sat Jan 2  Quantitative analysis of bird migration over Israel Schekler, I*; Sapir, N; University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel; University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel goldinbal@gmail.com

Israel is located in the heart of one of the largest migration flyways in the world. Yet, the properties of this major migration flyway have only been rarely studied, resulting in a poor understanding of this system. Using data from five consecutive years (2014-2018) collected by three weather radars and eight vertical-looking bird radars that were positioned throughout Israel, we investigated the nocturnal avian migration over the country. We applied the vol2bird algorithm to quantify autumn and spring migration properties and examined the meteorological conditions that influenced key migration attributes using the ERA5 model estimates. We found that temperature and tailwind speed were the most influential factors affecting migration intensity in spring, while tailwind speed and overall wind intensity affected autumn migration. Our updated calculations suggest that about 150 million birds migrate through Israel during the autumn, about a third of the amount estimated in previous research in the early 1990s, and we discuss several different reasons for this drastic difference in estimated bird migration volume over the country.

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