Site fidelity of Two-banded Plovers to their breeding grounds in northern Patagonia, Argentina

HEVIA GD; BERTELLOTTI M; D'AMICO VL

Ciudad de Panamá

Congreso; VIII WESTERN HEMISPHERE SHOREBIRD GROUP MEETING; 2019

Audubon de Panamá

A regional population of Two-banded Plovers (TBPL, Charadrius falklandicus) breed in coastal areas located northeast of the Chubut province, Patagonia Argentina. They generaly use two beaches separated by approximately 65 km in a straight line: Playas Blancas (98ha, Península Valdés) and Playa Paraná (55ha, Puerto Madryn). We captured and banded 27, 20 and 7 incubating adults in 2016, 2017 and 2018, respectively. All birds were individually marked with a metal ring and an orange flag engraved with an alphanumeric code. We recorded flag codes by photographing and classified the resightings as: ?breeders? (those banded during 2016 and observed nesting in 2017 and 2018), and ?non-breeders? (those banded in 2016, resighted in 2017 and 2018, but not nesting). From all birds banded in 2016, nearly 80% (n=19) and 33% (n=8) were resighted at the same beach in 2017 and 2018, respectively. For instance, we found 32% of the birds were breeders, while 68% were detected resting, foraging, alone or mixed with other shorebirds. From birds banded in 2017, we could only resight 40% (n=8) in 2018; nevertheless, this number is likely related to low survey efforts, as weel as we only visited Paraná beach. Within the whole breeding period (2016-2018), we found six individuals that nested twice during a season in the same site. nd nine renested within the same season and between seasons, respectively. Besides, we also identify 12 different partners but any of these birds were found paired with the same partner.