Review Reports

Comments 1: Please revise your topic by specifying which adult group of the species the authors are referring to. In this case, it is the Kentish plover population (Anarhynchus/Charadrius alexandrinus). Authors are not just talking about any waders here.

Response 1: Thank you for this helpful suggestion. We agree that specifying the species improves clarity. We have revised the title and the manuscript to explicitly refer to the Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) population.

Comments 2: Not necessary to have these numbers if you already have them in results section. I would delete here.

Response 2: Thank you for this comment. Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we have removed the numerical values from the summary since they are already presented in detail in the Results section (lines 34-37).

Comments 3: add any general citations here please.

Response 3: We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have added general citations on the effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on bird populations to support the statements in the Introduction (Ramo et al. 2013, Garcês et al. 2019) (line 45).

Comments 4: of??? please complete the sentence

Response 4: We thank the reviewer for this comment. The sentence was grammatically complete; however, to improve clarity and specificity, we have revised it to explicitly refer to bird population dynamics in the manuscript (line 48).

Comments 5: add citations

Response 5: We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have added relevant citations to support the statements on threats to coastal and wetland ecosystems (Defeo et al. 2009, Fluet-Chouinard et al. 2023) (line 50).

Comments 6: wader??

Response 6: Thank you for your comment. The oil spill affected many bird species, not just waders. We have rewritten the sentence including seabirds and waterbirds (line 71).

Comments 7: what are humans using nesting for?

Response 7: We thank the reviewer for this comment. We agree that the original wording could be misleading. The sentence has been revised to clarify that humans use the habitats where birds nest, rather than the nests themselves (line 79).

Comments 8: Please add climatic dimension of study area and human activities in the area or region.

Response 8: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. Following his advice, we have expanded the Study Area section to include a brief description of the climatic conditions of Galicia and of human activities along the Galician coast (lines 111-116).

Comments 9: in full if it is the first mentioning

Response 9: We are grateful for this observation. Although this is not the first time it has appeared in the manuscript, we have included the full term for clarity and marked the modification in the revised text (line 64).

Comments 10: Please replace this with Sampling technique as it is appropriate here.

Response 10: We appreciate the suggestion. Nevertheless, we have retained the original subheading to maintain consistency with the conventional structure of the Methods section and the journal’s formatting guidelines.

Comments 11: add ().

Response 11: Thank you for your comment. We added the parentheses in the text (line 147).

Comments 12: add weblink where this could be found

Response 12: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The official web link to the Spanish State Meteorological Agency (AEMET) has been added in the Methods section (line 160).

Comments 13: This section represent statistical analysis and should be given the subheading “Statistical Analysis.”

Response 13: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The section has been revised and is now presented under the subheading “Statistical Analysis,” as recommended (line 164).

Comments 14: The fotenote should be in small font, atleast 09.

Response 14: Thank you for the comment. We reduce the size of the footnote (lines 200-201).

Comments 15: Your x-and y-axis should have visible boarder line

Response 15: We thank the reviewer for this comment. The X and Y axes have been revised to include visible border lines in both figures (lines 202 and 206).

Comments 16: This is too short, please combine it with below paragraph.

Response 16: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The text has been revised, and the corresponding paragraph has been combined with the following one (lines 227-228).

Comments 17: add citation for this event

Response 17: Thanks for the comment. We add the reference Viada, C.; Moreno-Opo, R.; Carboneras, C. Impacto de la marea negra del ‘Prestige’ sobre las aves marinas; SEO/Birdlife: Madrid, 2003 (line 230).

Comments 1: The title could be more precise by directly mentioning the Kentish plover, in order to avoid any ambiguity with other plover species.

Response 1: Thank you for this helpful suggestion. We agree that specifying the species improves clarity. We have revised the title and the manuscript to explicitly refer to the Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) population.

Comments 2: Figure 1 (map) lacks clarity and does not sufficiently highlight the relief, although wind is one of the studied factors.

Response 2: Thank you for this comment. Figure 1 has been revised to improve clarity by incorporating a shaded relief layer, which improves the visualisation of the topography (line 117).

Comments 3: The absence of a representation of the measured morphometric parameters limits the understanding and reusability of the results for readers.

Response 3: We thank the reviewer for this comment. Morphometric measurements (body mass, bill length, tarsus length and wing length) were recorded as part of the standard ringing protocol. However, they were not included in the analyses because the objective of this study was to assess apparent survival and recapture probability in relation to environmental factors (oil spill and climatic variables), rather than to evaluate the influence of individual morphological variation or body condition. To avoid confusion, we have clarified this in the Methods section. However, we make this database available to readers upon request to the authors (see Data Availavility Statement) (lines 125 and 355).

Comments 1: Title: Please emphasize that you studied only two large-scale disturbance events (not other small-scale disturbances affecting this plover: see below). I suggest to add in the title the ‘Kentish plover’ a species (of relatively high conservation concern). Please add ‘regional’ to ‘population’ (there are many local populations investigated).

Response 1: Thank you for this helpful suggestion. We agree that specifying the species improves clarity. We have revised the title and the manuscript to explicitly refer to the Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) population.

Comments 2: Introduction. Plase cite the seminal handbook on plovers: Colwell, M. A., & Haig, S. M. (Eds.). (2019). The population ecology and conservation of Charadrius plovers. CRC Press.

Response 2: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The handbook by Colwell & Haig (2019) has now been cited in the Introduction (lines 77-79).

Comments 3: Rows 50-51 and 74-76. Ok, but on these coastal ecosystems a large number of other human-induced threats are present (see the reviews of Defeo et al., 2009, Estuarine, coastal and shelf science, 81(1), 1-12; Heslenfeld, P., Jungerius, P. D., & Klijn, J. A. (2004). European coastal dunes: ecological values, threats, opportunities and policy development. In: Coastal dunes: ecology and conservation (pp. 335-351). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg; Environmental conservation, 29(1), 62-77 (2025) and others. More particularly, about plovers there are many seasonal recurrent and threats that heavily affect local plover populations (mainly affecting Kentish and Little ringed plovers on sandy embryionic shifting dunes: big pop events: Conservation, 3: 87–95; Environmental Pollution 344 (2024) 123384;  dogs and natural predators, fishing lines and hooks, people trampling: Land 12, 464; Journal for Nature Conservation, 91: 127243; Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 26: 1000-1007 and others). I suggest to develop the section about local-small scale (periodic, recurrent and with high frequency when compared to large scale and rare oil spills) threats.

Response 3: Thank you for your comment. We have expanded the Introduction to include a short paragraph on locally recurring human disturbances to coastal ecosystems. This addition addresses the distinction between frequent, localised hazards and rare, large-scale events, such as oil spills, as recommended (lines 58-63).

Comments 4: Since the wide range of threats (rare and dramatic as oil spills, contnuous and with high local frequencies as the people disturbance on the beaches), I suggest to add some words about the differences among ‘pulse’ (‘Black Swans’: rare and strong on large areas) and ‘press’ (high frequency and with localized impacts) disturbances and about their different regimes in time and space (see rationale in disturbance ecology handbooks and papers of Brawn, Sousa, White and Pickett, Salafsky, Margoluis and so on).

Response 4: We thank the reviewer for this insightful comment. While we acknowledge the conceptual distinction between “pulse” and “press” disturbances, we have chosen not to expand on this topic in the present study, as it goes beyond the specific scope and objectives of our analysis, which focus on the survival of Kentish plovers in relation to oil spills and climatic factors.

Comments 5: In study area, please add some local references for details on geology, climate, vegetation and fauna.

Response 5: We thank the reviewer for the suggestion. We have added brief details on the climate and local topography of the Galician coast in the section Study area. We have focused on these aspects as they are most directly related to the study objectives, while further details on vegetation and fauna were not included because they are not central to the analyses presented in this work (lines 111-116).

Comments 6: Conclusions. ‘The study findings highlight the importance of environmental monitoring and targeted conservation measures’ This sentence is too much generic: specify which type of monitoring (on the species? About projects? BACI?), possible indicators (of status using species? Of pressures using variables linked to the anthropogenic threats? Of impacts? See the DPSIR approach). See more consistent so that also managers, practitioners and policy makers could read this interesting paper.

Response 6: We thank the reviewer for this useful suggestion. We have revised the last paragraph of the Conclusions section to make it more specific and management oriented. We believe that this revision clarifies the practical implications of our findings for managers and policy makers (lines 325-329).

Comments 7: Add the role of anonymous reviewers in the Acknowledgments.

Response 7: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The role of the anonymous reviewers has now been acknowledged in the Acknowledgments section of the revised manuscript (lines 359-360).

Comments 8: Check once again about the Editorial’s style of References. See the Birds Instructions.

Response 8: Thank you for your advice. We have carefully rechecked the references.

Comments 9: I am not a Mother Tongue: please check the manuscript with the support of a Mother Tongue (but, for me, the English language and style is readable).

Response 9: We thank the reviewer for the comment. The manuscript was carefully revised for English language and style prior to submission. Considering the reviewer’s note and that the text is already readable, we believe no further changes are necessary at this stage.