Protecting an iconic species
Photo: © Nathan Horrenberger
Photo: © Nathan Horrenberger
The European Roller (Coracias garrulus) is one of the most charismatic birds in Europe. Its azure turquoise plumage makes it one of the most colourful birds on our continent. A great migratory bird, it crosses the Sahara and the Mediterranean Sea from southern Africa each year to come to our continent to nest and raise its young, an amazing distance of more than 6,000 km. From May onwards, it settles in the warmest regions: first and foremost around the Mediterranean, but also in Central and Eastern Europe, where the continental summer climate provides it with sufficient warmth – and therefore food. The roller is about 30 centimetres long with a wingspan of 70 centimetres, the size of a small corvid. From a dead branch, an electric wire or a post, it hunts large insects such as grasshoppers, cicadas and beetles.
Once very abundant, the European roller is now threatened with extinction over a large part of its European range. In Central and Northern Europe, it has disappeared in a few decades from Scandinavia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia, and there are only a few dozen pairs left in the Baltic States, Belarus and Poland. Its populations are declining by at least 20% throughout Europe, from east to west and from north to south, with rare exceptions. It was classified “Near Threatened” on the Red List of Threatened Species from the early 2000s. Protected at the European level by the Birds Directive, its trade has also been banned at the global level by the Washington Convention (CITES) since 2014.
The roller is an excellent bioindicator of sustainable agriculture. It uses natural cavities dug by woodpeckers for nesting and its presence therefore indicates the presence of old trees and hedges. However, its need for large insects for food is not compatible with insecticide-intensive agriculture. Its use of wooded areas for nesting and open areas for hunting make it an indicator of agricultural mosaics. A charismatic and easily spotted species, its presence is accompanied by that of many other threatened species that share the same ecological needs, such as the Little owl, the Hoopoe, the shrikes and many others.
Red: nesting
Yellow: passage
(2011 - source: xeno-canto.org)
A Rocha France has been working to protect the European roller for more than 20 years. Since 2002, we have set up a network of nest boxes in one of the most important areas for the conservation of the Roller in France: the Vallée des Baux de Provence. The maintenance and monitoring of this network of nest boxes, as well as the other conservation measures implemented (planting of hedges, installation of perches, etc.), have enabled an increase in the Roller population in this area, while the population continued to decline elsewhere in Europe.
We have thus been able to develop our knowledge of the ecology and protection of the roller, and to develop an expertise on the species that is now recognised at the national level, thanks to the support of the Ministry of the Environment since 2010, and at the international level, with the participation in several colloquia and conferences, the co-writing of the European action plan for the conservation of the roller, and the establishment of collaborations with several universities and laboratories.
Drawing on our long experience and the results acquired in recent years, we aim to develop our conservation actions throughout the range of the European roller in France, and to disseminate our knowledge of good practices favourable to the European roller to as many people as possible.
We are working to:
The roller does not build its own nest and uses natural cavities dug by woodpeckers, or artificial nest boxes as shown here. The disappearance of natural cavities is one of the main threats to the roller.
Photo: © Orbán Zoltán
The work of A Rocha in monitoring, and a large part of our work to help the European roller, do not benefit from any subsidy and are only possible thanks to donations. You too can contribute to these efforts and take concrete action to save this magnificent bird! All the details here.
Timothée has been leading A Rocha France’s science and conservation activities since 2008. Since 2020, he has also been the director of our Mas Mireille centre in the Vallée des Baux. He holds a PhD in ecology (specialising in animal population dynamics) from the EPHE (Ecole Pratique de Hautes Etudes – PSL University),
A number of scientific articles have been published by Timothée Schwartz, in peer-reviewed scientific journals, both devoted to the European roller and its ecology.
Timothée Schwartz also successfully defended his doctoral thesis entitled “Artificial devices for restoration and ecological compensation: from the assessment of the risk of ecological traps to recommendations for good practice” on 1 October 2020.
Within the framework of this thesis, he also published:
To the south of the Alpilles, and not far from Arles, the Baux valley is home to one of the largest populations of rollers in France, with more than 30 pairs on 2000 hectares. Here there are an abundance of nesting sites and large insects to feed on!
Click here to find an initial 2016 study (in French) on the effects of artificial nests.
And click here to find the latest report (2021) on the roller population, in English.