News

Our programme ’s important purpose is to measure that Roller’s number who keep territories.Extended territory mapping never been done in Hungary before so we were not able to estimate the breeding Roller’s number. The Roller Territory Mapping of 2010 was a team- project including of rangers of the National Parks (KNPI & KNPMI) and voluntairs of Hungarian Birdlife.

The origins of this traditional meeting dates back to 1989 where the first venue was held at the foothills of the Vértes Mountains. This friendly and non-formal event is traditionally organized by MME/BirdLife Hungary’s Raptor Conservation Working Group, and held at different locations each year.

Colour ringing of Rollers has started in the areas of the project. The aim of the individual marking is to get more information about the Rollers’ migrating routes, habitat preferences and that very important fact that whether they use the same nestbox or choose the same mate year by year. Our knowledge is very poor nowadays about them so new informations will contribute to know the species better and provide more effective conservation of Rollers.

Early summer weather was not favourable for Rollers in 2010. As a hole-nesting species Roller is quite protected against weather- circumstances. Longer wet period could make its foraging activities much more difficult. The breeding season of this year has started very good, lot of pair have returned from their wintering places and occupied nest-box.
Some pairs tried to nest but the larger part of these nests have been died because of lack of food. Sometimes only one chick could make it of the four ones. 

The thunderstorm hitting the horse show on the 18th of June 2010 at Mezőhegyes has made it to national news, however it also had a less public but equally devastating effect on the wildlife and agriculture of the region.