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Capsule Red-spotted Bluethroats Luscinia s. svecica from two European breeding populations spent the boreal winter on the Indian sub-continent. Aim Tracking the migration of Red-spotted Bluethroats from Europe to the hitherto unknown non-breeding areas and back. Methods Light-level geolocators were deployed on male Bluethroats at breeding sites in the Czech Republic (n = 10) and in Norway (n = 30). Recorded light intensity data were used to estimate the locations of non-breeding sites and migration phenology during the annual cycle. Results Bluethroats spent the boreal winter in India (n = 3) and Pakistan (n = 1), on average more than 6000 km from their breeding areas. Autumn migration started in August (n = 1) or early September (n = 2), and lasted for 26–74 days. Spring migration commenced on 8 and 9 April (n = 2) and lasted for about a month. During both autumn and spring migration, birds stopped over two or three times for more than 3 days. Conclusion This study for the first time showed where Red-spotted Bluethroats from European breeding populations stay during the boreal winter. This seems to be the first time that a passerine bird has been tracked along the Indo-European flyway. publishedVersion

Capsule Three similarly sized passerine species with various breeding strategies behaved differently in the presence of models of mammalian and avian predators. Aims We tested whether solitary breeders behave in the presence of a predator in order to avoid disclosing their nest site in: hole-nesting Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca, shrub-nesting Blackcap Sylvia atricapilla and ground-nesting Meadow Pipit Anthus pratensis. Methods The behaviour of parents in response to two types of predator model (visually oriented Corvid birds and olfactory oriented Mustelid mammals) placed sequentially at 40, 5 and 1 m distance from the nest was recorded from a shelter. Results The hypothesis was supported in open-nesting species (Meadow Pipit and Blackcap), as parents did not approach the nest in the presence of a predator. In the hole-nesting Pied Flycatcher the parents disclosed the nest site in most cases (by entering the nest). The intensity of alarm calling increased with decreasing distance of a predator from ...