Factors Affecting Road Mortality of the Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica in Farmland

Abstract

Ninety-nine road-killed Barn Swallows were found during three years of studies on a 48.8 km road network in an intensively farmed landscape in SW Poland. Nearly 88% of all road-kills were recorded in built-up areas and on road sections in their vicinity. The average number of road-kills per 1 km of roads was over twenty times higher in built-up areas than in open agricultural landscape (6.74 vs 0.33 road-kills/1 km). This paper investigates the influence of environ