Distribution and abundance of Middle Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopos medius in a southern population of the Cantabrian Mountains

Full article

Published:

Volume 50(2), December 2003. Pages 275-280.

Language:

Spanish

Original title:

Distribución y abundancia del Pico Mediano Dendrocopos medius en una población meridional de la cordillera Cantábrica

Abstract:

During three years, we studied the distribution, density and population size of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker in 48 forests in northern  Spain. A mean of the 38.5% of the forests were occupied each year and we estimated a density of 0.24 territories/ 10 ha in 23 forests with presence of woodpeckers (a total number of 102-107 territories in the study area). This density is much lower than those previously obtained by different methods in other Spanish studies, probably partly due to the use of different census techniques. We suggest visiting census localities several times per year for several years to estimate distribution of this species and using mapping method when densities are assessed.