Baillon’s Crake Porzana pusilla sp.intermedia is considered a migrant with wintering sites in Sahelian wetlands, W-Africa. In the framework of the PhD-project “Habitat and spatial distribution, seasonal dynamics and origin of the Baillon’s Crake Porzana pusilla in Djoudj National Park, NWSenegal. Implications for the conservation of Sahelian floodplains” in spring 2009 and 2010, Baillon’s Crakes where caught in the Senegal delta. From the recent results, it is hypothesised that the Senegalese population might comprise both, breeding birds of unknown origin and palaearctic wintering birds. To test our hypothesis, we intend to catch Baillon’s Crakes in sites at he margin of the species’ European breeding sites (e.g. Montenegro, Hungary and Spain) for
the purpose of collecting feather and tissue simples for further analyses such as Stable Isotopes signatures and DNA-microsatellite patterns. The study intends to establish the link between European breeding sites and the potential sub- Saharan wintering sites. Furthermore, the systematical capture of Baillon’s Crakes in the Guadalquivir marshes should help to shed more light on the so far highly tentative population estimates of the species.