Environmental factors of primary waterbird choosing fishponds in Shou-Feng fishery area

• Main Authors: Ying-Chi Liao, 廖英琦
• Other Authors: Yue-Joe Hsia
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/09334322140340872939

碩士 === 國立東華大學 === 自然資源管理研究所 === 94 === Shou-Feng fishery area located at the flood plane of Hulian Creek, Hualien County, was formed mainly by excavated fishponds. Fishponds provide plenty food resources for water birds. The most common spotted water bird species were birds of family Ardeidae (Egretta alba, Egretta garzetta, Ardea cinerea etc.), Little Grebe (Podiceps ruficollis), Moorhen (Gallinula chioropus), etc. Monitoring program was carried out to investigate habitat characteristics of different avian species. 56 fishponds out of a total around 368 fishponds were stratified sampled based on fishponds size. From November, 2004 to March, 2005, 16 field observations and a total of 942 bird counting observations were made. Birds observed during the winter were mainly resident bird species such as the Little Egret (Egretta garzetta), Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax), Moorhen (Gallinula chloropu) and Little Grebe (Tachybaptus ruficollis). At the same time, there were also the migratory bird such as Great Egret (Casmerodius albusand) and Gary Heron (Ardea cinerea). The amount of bird count was correlated with low water level in the fishpond, wide fishpond width, dense floating plant coverage, and neighboring fishponds number around the sampling fishpond. Comparison between the habitat characteristics of winter migratory egrets and resident egrets indicated that both are correlated with fishponds area and aeration machine number employed in fishponds. The resident egrets favors fishponds with shallow water level and higher floating plant coverage. The winter migratory egrets, however, favors habitats with a few number of neighboring fishponds.