The European roller is a small, striking migratory bird that breeds in open woodlands — or farms and orchards — across Europe and Central Asia. Coracias garrulus is also well-known to Southern and South Africa’s avid birdwatching communities, including many citizen scientists who participate in the Southern African Bird Atlas Project. But the rollers that […]

The European roller is a small, striking migratory bird that breeds in open woodlands — or farms and orchards — across Europe and Central Asia. Coracias garrulus is also well-known to Southern and South Africa’s avid birdwatching communities, including many citizen scientists who participate in the Southern African Bird Atlas Project. Image courtesy of Lourenço Afonso. But the rollers that spend November to March in South Africa appear to be mostly the C. g. semenowi subspecies. The routes these populations follow to their breeding grounds as far as 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away in Central Asia are not known. Image courtesy of Ma Ming. Since 2024, scientists at BirdLife South Africa have fit tiny 3.8-gram (0.1-ounce) trackers to seven birds to investigate the birds’ migration routes and stopover sites. Image courtesy of Jean-Richard Snoer. The tagged rollers traveled north through Tanzania and Kenya, paused in Somalia, and then flew on to Central Asia via Oman and India. One individual ended up in China, two others in Uzbekistan. Image courtesy of BirdLife SA One year’s tracking of just seven birds has connected South Africa to bird clubs in Gujarat, India, and a Chinese researcher studying the rollers’ breeding behavior in Xinjiang, China. Image courtesy of Ma Ming. BirdLife SA’s tiny staff dedicated to the European Roller Monitoring Project is supported by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The tracking devices are paid for by individual donors. Image courtesy of Jean-Richard Snoer. In the years ahead, Flyway and Migrants Project…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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