Collared pratincole nest success in Hungary

Agricultural intensification has affected wildlife across Europe,
triggering steep declines and regional extinctions of farmland birds.
Effective conservation activities are essential for the preservation of
biodiversity in an agricultural landscape, but current efforts have not
succeeded in halting these declines. Here we investigate a ground-nesting
shorebird, the collared pratincole, Glareola pratincola, which
has shifted its habitat use in Central Europe over the last 20 years from
alkaline grasslands to intensively managed agricultural fields. We show
that nesting success was different between three agricultural habitat
types, with the highest nesting success in fallow lands and the lowest in
row crops. Nesting success was also associated with the timing of breeding
and breeding density, as nests produced early in the breeding season and
those in high-breeding-density areas hatched more successfully than those
produced later in the season and at low density. We implemented direct
conservation measures including marking nests and negotiating with farmers
to avoid cultivating the field between nest markers, controlling nest
predators, and, most recently, creating suitable nesting sites and
foraging areas for pratincoles. As a result of these conservation actions,
nest survival increased from 11.2% to 83.5% and the size of the breeding
population increased from 13 to 56 pairs during 2012–2021. Thus, we show
that agricultural landscapes can continue to provide important habitats,
and targeted conservation actions have the potential to reverse the
declines of farmland species.