Synchronous breeding of Gull-billed Terns in the steppe Trans-Urals. - E.V. Barbazyuk. - Berkut. 16 (2). 2007. - P. 221-224.
This report provides results on ecology of a relatively poor studied species of the Gull-billed Tern. Data on the settlement of breeding habitats (egg-laying rates, hatching rates) were collected on the Lakes Ayke and Shalkar-Ega-Kara, the southern extremity of the Orenburg region, Southern Russia in 2000, 2001 and 2003. Gull-billed Terns were found to display high rates of the breeding habitat settlement. At six colonies the overall hatching period (egg-laying period) totaled 7.8 ± 0.5 days. Such habitat settlement strategy is suspected to be an adaptive mechanism permitting breeding in unstable habitats: on small sand-banks in lakes, dry and wet temporary islets under the intense heat of summer and unstable hydrological regime of lakes. [Russian].
Key words: Gull-billed Tern, Gelochelidon nilotica, Orenburg region, breeding, colony.
Address: E.V. Barbazyuk, Institute of Steppe, Pionerskaya str. 11, 460000 Orenburg, Russia; e-mail: bev@esoo.ru.