The European roller... Who remembers the sky-blue bird with a maroon back today? As early as the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh, the king resisted the seduction of the divine Ishtar – knowing the fate of her former lovers, including the colourful “Little Shepherd” bird, which she struck, breaking his wing. In the Slovak environment, the theme of the European roller symbolising his vanishing youth was part of the story of the adolescent Jerguš Lapin.
The European roller, about the size of a turtle-dove, is the only representative of its species in Europe. Staying faithful to the conditions in savannah woodlands of Africa, where most of its relatives live, it prefers areas with dry and warm summers. It is typically found in areas of meadows, pastures and fields with small sparse woods, avenues of trees and small clusters of old trees. Sitting in an elevated place – a dry branch, a power line or a stack of grain, it hunts large insects and small vertebrates. It nests in the hollows of trees, buildings, the cracks in rocks, as well as burrows in the ground. It mainly spends the winter in Eastern and Southern Africa. Breeding pairs remain faithful to their nesting sites and many of them return to nest in the same hollow year after year. Since the 1950s there has been a rapid decrease recorded in the occurrence of European rollers in Europe. The last breeding pair hatched their chicks in Slovakia, near Komárno, in 2010. The causes for this decrease include persecution, a lack of food, but mainly the removal and disposal of old trees with hollows and intense large-scale agriculture.
The experience gained in a number of European countries suggests that building suitable birdhouses and thoughtfully caring for trees in the open countryside may result in a comeback by this bird – even in those regions where it no longer lives. The rules of the game required to bring the European roller back to Slovakia are well-known. Our best chance to once again make the May skies above the Slovak plains and basins come alive with the breathtakingly steep flights of male European rollers uttering their mating cries is in the hands of our farmers.

Miroslav Bohuš