Abstract
One of the primary purposes of bird banding is to monitor breeding populations. However, there have been only a few published works that have used banding records to study breeding populations in Japan. Here, we report the results of breeding philopatry and natal philopatry of Asian Stubtails Urosphena squameiceps from a long-term banding study (1990～2013) in Hokkaido, northern Japan (ca. 27 ha). We captured 2,233 birds over a 24-year period and calculated a return rate of 7.7% for adults and a natal philopatry rate of 0.5% for juveniles. The return rate of males, at 17.0%, was significantly higher than that of females, at 8.4%. The longest individual record was for a male, which returned to the breeding site for 5 consecutive years. The low breeding site fidelity of Asian Stubtails compared to the other migratory passerine species is probably because they are able to disperse widely, as there are many other suitable breeding areas in Japan.
