Bird responses to wildfire in the Karst

Our study on the response of bird communities to the 2022 wildfire in the Karst is now published in Biological Conservation: Integrating remote sensing and species' traits to assess bird responses to wildfire in agropastoral landscapes. It is based on bird point counts that we designed and carried out in 2023 (first year after the fire) within a mixed voluntary group of Italian and Slovenian ornithologist in the trans-boundary Karst area.
 

In short, we found out that: 
1) forest birds had a mixed response to the fire (some benefitting from it = Great Spotted Woodpecker, Great Tit, some suffering = Blackbird)
2) shrub species (Nightingale, Blackcap, Chiffchaff, Melodious Warbler) suffered the most
3) grassland/semi-open habitat species (Hoopoe, Woodlark, Nightjar) benefitted the most

 

Also lots of other findings - check out the paper. Something more about this subject in one of our previous blogs.

Schematic results of our study

Study area in the trans-boundary Karst between Slovenia and Italy.

Black Woodpecker Dryocopus martius on charred black pine Pinus nigra

Woodlark Lullula arborea in post-fire forest

Rock Bunting Emberiza cia feeding in a charred black pine forest.

Post-fire black pine forest in the Karst (Slovenia)

Post-fire shrubland/grassland in the Karst (Slovenia)

Ptice Slovenije, Evrope in Sredozemlja... with Killian Mullarney

The end of March 2025 marked a very important moment in Slovenian ornithology and birding. The first ever Slovene translation of the legendary Collins Bird Guide was published. We took the very ambitious task to translate the book at DOPPS - BirdLife Slovenia and after a year and a half (and with the work of 20 voluntary translators), the book is now finally out! Although the book is obviously in Slovene, it could be of interest to some of the readers of this blog too - you can buy it on DOPPS' online shop. The translation is of the book's 3rd and latest updated edition from 2022.

Favourite plates? Woodpeckers of course! Guess who translated these?

The very special moment of the book's official launch was honoured by the presence of a very special guest: Killian Mullarney, one of the book's co-authors and illustrators, came to visit us in Slovenia and gave a talk at the book's presentation. The event was live-streamed on YouTube and is available for watching here (Killian's talk from minute 26:10 approximately). As Killian visited us for a couple of days, we also had the opportunity to spend some time in the field with him and show him some of our best birding locations (and birds) in Slovenia. He was a very pleasant company in the field and was very kind to sign a huge amount of the book's copies - he had quite a lot of work with that!

Killian Mullarney giving a talk at the book's presentation (video of the talk, from min 26:10).

In the field with Killian Mullarney at Škocjanski zatok NR

 

More or less at the same time, the spring issue of our members's magazine Svet ptic (of which Domen is the editor) was published. In it we also featured an interview with Killian in Slovene, while a longer online version of the interview in English can be read here.

Svet ptic bird magazine featuring the interview with Killian Mullarney & our brand new field guide in Slovene.