Autumn migration routes and wintering areas of juvenile Chinese Egrets (Egretta eulophotes) revealed by GPS tracking

Background The vulnerable Chinese Egret (Egretta eulophotes) is a long-distance migratory waterbird whose migration and wintering information is poorly understood. This study aims to identify the autumn migration routes and wintering areas of juvenile Chinese Egrets and determine the migration movement traits of this species. Methods Thirty-nine juvenile Chinese Egrets from the Fantuozi Island, an uninhabited offshore island with a large breeding colony of Chinese Egrets in Dalian, China, were tracked using GPS/GSM transmitters. Some feathers from each tracked juvenile were collected for molecular identification of sex in the laboratory. The GPS locations, recorded at 2-h intervals from August 2018 to May 2020, were used for the analyses. Results Of the 39 tracked juveniles, 30 individuals began their migration between September and November, and 13 successfully completed their autumn migration between October and November. The juveniles migrated southward via three migration routes, coastal, oceanic and inland, mainly during the night. The migration duration, migration distance, flight speed, and stopover duration of the 13 juvenile egrets that completed migration averaged 5.08 ± 1.04 days, 3928.18 ± 414.27 km, 57.27 ± 5.73 km/h, and 23.08 ± 19.28 h, respectively. These juveniles wintered in the coastal wetlands of Southeast Asia including those in the Philippines, Vietnam, and Malaysia, and only one successfully began its spring migration in June 2020. Conclusions This study newly finds that the oceanic route taken by juvenile Chinese Egrets, suggesting that the juveniles are able to fly over the Pacific Ocean without a stopover. Moreover, our novel data indicate that coastal wetlands along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway are important areas for both autumn migration stopover and the wintering of these juveniles, suggesting that international cooperation is important to conserve the vulnerable Chinese Egret and the wetland habitats on which it depends.

Type specimens and type localities of birds (Aves) collected during F. J. F. Meyen’s circumnavigation in 1830–1832

At least 32 bird species were described as new to science on the basis of material collected by Franz Meyen during his circumnavigation in 1830–1832. We identified the type specimens and determined the type localities of these species, which are currently housed in the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany. Ardea longicollis Meyen, 1834, is identified as a senior synonym of Egretta eulophotes (Swinhoe, 1860), but is set aside as a nomen oblitum. The name of a Neotropical dove is corrected from Metriopelia ceciliae zimmeri (Peters, 1937) to Metriopelia ceciliae gymnops (Chubb, 1917). A lectotype is designated for Nectarinia philippensis Meyen, 1834a.