Weather ultimately affects avian migration. The significance of meteorological variables is relatively well known for flights of migrants and for departure/landing decisions at stopover sites. Success of migration greatly depends on storage of fat and body mass gain at stopovers; however, the influence of weather on refueling at stopovers is surprisingly poorly studied. We tested the hypothesis that body mass change of European Robins during their migratory stopovers is affected by meteorological factors (air temperature, precipitations, surface wind speed), along with other ecological variables. We used data on body mass change in 9743 individuals (5147in spring and 4587 in the fall) captured and recaptured within the same day on the Courish Spit of the Baltic Sea in 1994–2003. Fuel deposition rate in Robins was positively associated with air temperature and with higher amount of precipitation. Wind speed did not influence the refueling efficiency of our study species. Also, fuel deposition rate of Robins was affected by age (higher in adults than in first-year birds), negatively influenced by the number of conspecifics at stopover, influenced by the progress of the season (negatively in spring and positively in fall), and negatively influenced by initial energy reserves of migrants, when birds in poor energy condition were more likely to gain weight than birds with large fuel stores. This study shows that refueling of Robins on migration stopovers is substantially affected by meteorological factors that should be taken in to account for comprehensive understanding of stopover ecology and migration strategy of songbird migrants.

中文翻译：

---

影响欧洲知更鸟（Erithacus rubecula）迁徙期间加油的气象因素

天气最终会影响鸟类迁徙。气象变量的重要性对于移民的飞行和中途停留地点的出发/着陆决定是众所周知的。迁移的成功很大程度上取决于中途停留时脂肪的储存和体重的增加；然而，天气对中途停留加油的影响却出奇地缺乏研究。我们检验了欧洲知更鸟在迁徙中途停留期间体重变化受气象因素（气温、降水、地表风速）以及其他生态变量影响的假设。我们使用了 1994 年至 2003 年在波罗的海的库里什沙嘴在同一天捕获和重新捕获的 9743 个人（春季 5147 人，秋季 4587 人）的体重变化数据。罗宾斯的燃料沉积率与气温和较高的降水量呈正相关。风速不影响我们研究物种的加油效率。此外，知更鸟的燃料沉积率受年龄影响（成年鸟高于一岁鸟），受中途停留同种数量的负面影响，受季节进展的影响（春季为负，秋季为正），并且受到迁徙者初始能量储备的负面影响，当能量状况不佳的鸟类比具有大量燃料储备的鸟类更容易增加体重时。