With the support of INTAS, a long-term project could be started to investigate songbird migration between Eastern, Central and Western Europe including the population dynamics of the species investigated. The study is a multi-methodological approach. The Russian partners have started a big bird trapping station on the Kurish Spit north of Kaliningrad where they are able to trap about 20 000 individual songbirds of about 100 different species in each autumn migratory period. Since bird trapping is performed under strictly standardized methods, the trapping figures can be used to estimate the population dynamics of the recruitment areas of the species and can be directly compared with similar studies in Central and Western Europe. These geographical comparisons allow to look for differences in the population dynamics, especially the frequency of population declines, in different European areas. The German and Italian partners above all analyze their numerous ringing recoveries of formerly ringed birds in order to define the bird migration axes between Western, Southern, Central and Eastern Europe. Due to the support of INTAS, the big programme could be initiated relatively early, and in the meantime sufficient funds could be raised to guarantee a long-term continuation of the programme for at least a five year period. In the meantime, the project has also become part of a network-programme of the European Science Foundation on the analysis of European-African songbird migration.
