We analysed the number of autumn migrants at a bird ringing station over 41 years in the Jura mountains of Switzerland. For
12 irruptive or potentially irruptive bird species, the correlations between their numbers per year were calculated and the
species were clustered accordingly. We found high correlations in the number of migrants between the Coal Tit
Periparus ater, Great Tit
Parus major and Blue Tit
Cyanistes caeruleus. Most correlations of passage number between species pairs changed dramatically over time. Only Blue Tit and Coal Tit showed
continuously high correlation in this respect. The variation and changes over time in between-species correlations in the
number of migrants needs more attention.
Keywords Autumn migration - Correlation between the number of migrants of different species - Irruptive species - Partial migrants
Communicated by F. Bairlein.