For a declining steppe bird, fallows and traditional orchards are doing different jobs across the day and season
WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
Fine-scale GPS tracking showed Eurasian stone-curlews preferred fallow land across activities and placed more than half of recorded nests there, while non-intensive almond and olive orchards were also selected for foraging, resting and nesting, particularly during summer days. Intensive irrigated fruit orchards planted as hedgerows were avoided. Hatching success did not differ significantly among land-use types.
WHY IT MATTERS / OUR READ
For land managers, the signal is about complementarity rather than a single prescription. Retaining fallow patches alongside lower-intensity traditional orchards may preserve the mix of nesting, resting and foraging conditions used by steppe birds across time, whereas conversion toward uniform intensive orchard systems can remove that heterogeneity.
CAVEATS / UNCERTAINTY
Habitat selection is not the same as demographic benefit, and the study did not find significant land-use differences in hatching success. Results come from one Mediterranean agricultural landscape and should inform local habitat planning rather than prescribe a universal fallow or orchard percentage.
SOURCE
Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment · Original evidence
View original evidence ↗
Fine-scale tracking of Eurasian stone-curlews in Catalonia points to heterogeneous farmland mosaics—not one uniform 'wildlife-friendly' land use—as the management asset.
Read the Wild Lands assessment →