The Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas – documenting migration and movements using ringing and tracking data

The online Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas project (due late February 2022) provides vital information for bird conservationists and ecologists. At its core the Atlas is an online tool documenting the movement patterns of some 300 bird species based on over 100 years of ringing data from the EURING databank, as well as tracking data from Movebank. The Atlas draws on data from all major European Ringing Schemes and the core project team involves researchers from nine European countries. We outline how these data have been analysed to provide a robust picture of the migration patterns of different species and populations using large-scale and long-term ring recovery data, with tracking data additionally providing more detailed movement information for a more limited sample of individuals and populations. The Atlas is based around maps showing the overall migratory connectivity patterns of different regional populations, how these patterns vary according to different seasons, seasonal movements throughout the annual cycle, and patterns according to cause of recovery. There are also a range of infographics documenting the nature of the dataset and potential biases in time and space. While acknowledging the potential biases resulting from different recovery causes, we show how the Migration Atlas outputs can be combined to understand avian movement patterns, and that for most species the available data provide a robust picture of bird migration. Within the Atlas project as a whole, these species-specific recovery analyses are linked to more detailed analyses of migration timing, migratory connectivity, impacts of illegal killing and long-term changes in movement patterns.