June 6th, 2025

Spring complete list data collection weekend organised across SE Europe

On the weekend of May 10 -11^th, we organised the second, spring, complete list data collection challenge across the partnership of SE Europe (countries: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia). Under the slogan of “Every bird counts (double!) in SE Europe“, the partners aim to increase the participation of birdwatchers in recording observation to their national on-line bird platforms, with a special focus on the collection of complete lists. Since this second challenge was organised in spring, we also tried   to emphasise the importance of recording the breeding bird evidence, as this might contribute to the ongoing national atlas projects, as well as European initiatives, such as EBBA2 Live Farmland.

Breeding site for Sand Martin and Bee eater in Lakesine, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Although these efforts are promoted year-round (through Regional Dynamization Campaign), each season has one dedicated weekend to the challenge, happening simultaneously across the region. The results and effort are visible in near real-time through the shared platform SEELists, which also presents the phenological information at the species level, updated daily from the incoming complete lists of the region.

Phenological patterns of Sedge and Marsh Warbler as shown in SEE lists

Each partner of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project leads the campaign within their country according to their local needs and with regards to potential connections and synergies with their other activities. In this sense, some partners opted to have a lecture on the importance of complete lists and recording breeding bird evidence beforehand (BIOM, Croatia and BPSS, Serbia), with many of them using this opportunity for a field session on the set weekend with the participants. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ornithological Society "Naše ptice" organised excursions in two key birding locations: Hutovo Blato Nature Park and Lakševine near Mostar. During these outings, observers recorded a rich variety of bird species, mostly waterbirds, Sand Martins, and Bee-eaters. In Bulgaria, BSPS, had an outing near Batova river Natura 2000 site, where they recorded a total of 48 bird species, including highlights such as Lesser Spotted Eagle, Booted Eagle, Dalmatian Pelican, Levant Sparrowhawk, Ortolan Bunting, European Turtle Dove, and Tawny Pipit.

People participating in the activities held in Bosnia and Herzegovina (above) and Bulgaria (below)

Similarly, in Croatia, BIOM, held an excursion in the capital Zagreb, where they were able to show the participants different species which showcased different breeding behaviours (from several species of woodpeckers to great tit courting displays), while being accompanied by the national broadcasting company (HRT) that made a short contribution on these activities. The Serbian partner, BPSS, held a practical training in a special reserve “Deliblatska peščara” where they also held a field session for entering the complete lists and casual data, whereas KOS from Kosovo took the opportunity to visit 3 localities as a part of the challenge. In Greece, HOS, encouraged birders to bird and upload complete lists from at least 5 different locations to win small prizes (Collins Guide, HOS t-shirts and relevant small gifts). This resulted with many birdwatchers taking part in the challenge on eBird, with an overall of stunning 407 complete lists uploaded over the weekend in Greece.

Participants of the activities held in Serbia (above) and Croatia (below)

Overall, towards the end of May, we have in total over 15,000 complete lists submitted in the region, with the highest historical percentage of records in complete lists!  Together with our partners, we hope to continue the trend of collecting more standardised bird data in the future.

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June 6th, 2025

A New Chapter for Birdwatching in North Macedonia – ptici.mk Takes Flight!

In mid April, dozens of nature lovers, bird researchers, and amateur ornithologists gathered in Netaville, Skopje, to mark this milestone and celebrate the official launch of the first ever citizen science platform dedicated to bird data collection in the country. The event featured a presentation by Metodija Velevski, Deputy Director of the Macedonian Ecological Society (MES) and ornithologist, who shared insights into the platform’s development journey and its importance for the local scientific and birdwatching communities.

The launching event ptici.mk took place in Netaville, Skopje.

The ptici.mk platform provides a modern virtual space for enthusiasts to get inspired to discover birds - common and rare, to share bird knowledge, and contribute to scientific research through active participation. It consists of a dynamic website that visualizes bird sightings and an Android app used to collect field data. An iOS version is in development, while current efforts focus on making the Android app fully functional and available soon on Google Play.

Danka Uzunova, ornithologist and project coordinator at MES, highlighted the platform's inclusive design:

“ptici.mk is created to support the growing number of birdwatchers, researchers, and bird photographers in North Macedonia. It promotes citizen science by encouraging users to document their sightings. The app requires basic bird ID knowledge, but it's simple and engaging enough to attract beginners too.”

Beyond its community-building purpose, ptici.mk is also a powerful scientific tool. By systematically collecting high-quality bird observation data across the country, the platform lays the groundwork for developing national-level biodiversity indicators, particularly for bird population trends—a key goal under EU environmental policy frameworks such as the Birds Directive and the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy.

The launching of ptici.mk congregated dozens of nature lovers, bird researchers and amateur ornithologists 

This innovative platform is maintained by the Macedonian Ecological Society and it has been developed as part of the project of the “Improving the capabilities of the EuroBirdPortal project in order to boost its contribution towards EU policy objectives under the Birds Directive and the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy (101104367 LIFE22-PLP-ES-EBP reinforcement)”, co-funded by the European Union and the Sigrid Rausing Trust.

In a meanwhile..........Big applause for North Macedonia’s birdwatching community! 

Following nearly a year of testing with real-world data and a month since its official public launch, ptici.mk – has already passed 15,000 records and logged its 260th bird species!

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March 5th, 2025

First data collection challenge for complete lists in SE Europe

In the first weekend of February, we started a new data collection challenge "Every bird counts (double!) in SE Europe". This challenge is a part of an ongoing Regional Dynamization Campaign (within the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project) which aims to increase the participation and especially collection of complete lists throughout the region (countries included are: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia): The aim is to have an ongoing campaign year round, but also to have these dedicated weekend challenges, once per each season, simultaneously across the region. Although SE Europe is generally rich in bird species, it is still behind other parts of Europe in the number of volunteers entering bird data as well as the habit of making complete lists.

 Phenololgical graph of Siskin as seen in SEE lists

In order to support the challenge, we have launched a new tool SEE lists, which uses the complete lists collected in the region and the reporting rates derived from them to provide daily updated phenological information at the species level. By having these data presented to partners and their network of observers, we hope to increase the interest and raise awareness of the importance of complete lists in the region.

Participants of the data collection challenge organized by AOS in Tirana city park

On the other hand, each partner is conducting the challenge in a way that corresponds to their local needs, considering the connections and synergies they might have with other on-going projects and their existing volunteers. For example, in Croatia, our local partner BIOM, first introduced the aim of the challenge and importance of complete lists to bird observers in a lecture, whereas during the challenge weekend an outing in the city park was organised for wider public. In Albania, one of the partners, AOS, connected the showcase of how to enter a complete list together with a bird ringing event, whereas the second partner PPNEA organised a field excursion to wetlands near Durres. In North Macedonia, MES, used the weekend challenge also as an opportunity to present their newly established national on-line bird portal to interested individuals, whereas in Kosovo, the data collection challenge was tightly connected to the activities and fieldwork around the International Waterbird Counts. In Serbia, BPSS, organised a few lectures beforehand and connected the weekend activities to engage with high school students during fieldwork.

Participants of the data collection challenge organized by BIOM in Croatia

In total, we have managed to collect a bit over 3000 complete lists until the beginning of March, and although we are still behind the previous year, we strongly believe that through the ongoing activities connected with the Regional Dynamization Campaign, and upcoming spring weather, together with our partnership, we will manage to increase these efforts in SE Europe.

Participants of the data collection challenge organized by KOS in Kosovo

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January 31st, 2025

SEE lists: showcasing the value of collecting complete lists in SE Europe

SEE lists is a new EBP tool that aims to contribute to increase the overall quality and quantity of the data collected in SE Europe by showcasing the value of the complete lists collected by the online bird portals operating in Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia (the target countries of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project in SE Europe).

SEE lists has three main sections, all of them updated every day with the data collected up to the previous day by the different online bird portals (see here to know more about the EBP data flow system).

At the top, you can see the overall statistics in terms of the number of species recorded, complete lists submitted and observers contributing data and, on the right, the section that shows how data collection and participation has progressed in the area over the years. At the center, there is the main section of the viewer, where you can see the information at the species level (you can select the species of interest from the drop-down menu), including overall changes in reporting rates and the phenological graphs. 

Why are complete lists so valuable?

Unlike casual observations, complete lists not only contain information about the bird species that have been detected, but also about those that have not been detected. In other words, they give much more valuable information because knowing where birds aren’t detected is just as important as knowing where they are!

Thanks to this, complete lists are particularly helpful when trying to understand the patterns of bird distribution across space and time or to study phenological patterns and their change over time.

The phenological patterns shown in this viewer are just one of the many interesting outputs that can be provided thanks to complete lists!

SEE lists is possible thanks to the work of the EBP partners in SE Europe and the data collected by the different online bird portals operating in the region.

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January 7th, 2025

Malta Bird Sightings improves its functionalities and its already fully connected to the EBP data flow

In January 2021 BirdLife Malta launched a new online bird recording portal, named Malta Bird Sightings (MBS), to serve as a portal for local birders to submit their ornithological records. Prior to that, a number of other systems were used, with the last being World Birds, decommissioned in 2015. Following that, unstructured systems such as private FB groups were used, leaving some gaps in observation data.

Using public portals like eBird was never really an option for Maltese birders given the difficult situation with hunting for taxidermy; posting sightings on such portals would be dangerous for both the birds and the birders themselves!

MBS was immediately taken up by the local birding community and usage is consistently on the increase. As of 1st October 2024 more than 19 thousand birding sessions have been logged by approximately 80 users. Thanks to the system, since 2021, an annual Malta Bird Report is now also being published, with 2023 being launched soon.

In 2022, driven mainly by Article 12 reporting obligations, it was modified to facilitate standardized data collection for various types of surveying including migration monitoring and breeding bird surveys. The latter involved the introduction of visual representation of sampling square, transect and point based sampling etc. which was accessible on mobile devices and hence enabled direct inputting by the surveyors in the field.

In 2023 and 2024 modifications were done in order to prepare for, and eventually complete, the data flow connection with the EBP project.

The first task was to improve the collection of Complete Lists within MBS. The first key modification involved allowing birders to mark their lists as complete or not. This was critical to told apart complete lists from incomplete lists. Secondly, a campaign with local birders was made to encourage the inputting of complete lists since it was often the case that common species, particularly resident ones were omitted or had only their presence recorded, rather than an actual count. This was also successfully achieved with the majority of the lists submitted are now complete lists.

The remaining percentage is either casual observations, important observations picked up from social media posts posted by people who are not part of the local birding (and MBS) community, or double observations of scarce birds inputted by different birders such that these appear on their year list totals.

The second  task was that to connect MBS to the EBP such that sightings submitted in MBS become part of the EBP databank. This was a multi-step approach.

Firstly, the species list needed to be aligned. BirdLife Malta, and therefore MBS, uses the same list used by BirdLife International; the HBW, which is also the same list that the EBP uses, thus this made this task easier. The list was analysed and any discrepancies, including in scientific names used, were corrected and codes were added.

The second task was to create functionality within MBS that is able to push data into the EBP API. The EBP API is implemented following proper REST standards and has excellent documentation, that includes good usage examples. Furthermore, it is backed by an excellent technical team at ICO that are ready to help in testing and answer queries. This made this a fairly straightforward task as well.

A standalone cron-job was built for this specific task. This job was designed to pull data directly from the MBS database, apply any mappings needed and push the data to EBP. Data from 2021 was pushed in batches by running this cron-job manually in Bulk Mode. Live data is pushed every night, using Standard Mode, with the job keeping note of its last successful runtime and picking up data that was added or modified since then. This has been successfully running daily since September 2024, with over 160 thousand records from Malta now present in the EBP.

Work is now being undertaken within BirdLife Malta to encourage birders to populate their past records (prior to 2021) into MBS, such that this data is more readily available both for BLM itself and is also in EBP.

These tasks were undertaken thanks to funding received by BLM as part of the LIFE EBP reinforcement.

An important key to the success of systems like MBS, their continuous improvements and the timely and successful integration with external systems such as the EBP, is the technical team or person behind the system. In the case of MBS, this was myself, a passionate birder and conservationist and part of the local birding community since a very young age, that studied and worked in IT for a number of years. The skills gained working in the IT industry together with the knowledge of the birding situation in Malta, and the needs of BirdLife Malta, allowed me to be able to build a tailored sightings system. This eliminated the need for a technical product owner that can translate functional and ‘business’ requirements into technical ones and also the engagement of a 3^rd party software development company. The former in particular is often not easy to find in small, conservation NGOs like BLM, and the latter can be very costly to engage and eventually maintain long-term. These two factors are often the failing point for the success of such IT systems.

Furthermore since I am now myself employed within BLM as the coordinator of local bird monitoring schemes, this also allows me to continue further enhance MBS to facilitate specific data collection requirements and keep up the data submission momentum with the local birding community. The main challenge such a scenario presents is of course that all the technical knowledge of the system is held by a single person, and this can be a risk which is not easy to mitigate. 

Nicolas Galea (BirdLife Malta)

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December 10th, 2024

The 21st EBP meeting and a LIFE EBP Reinforcement workshop bring together 36 participants from 18 countries in Podgorica, Montenegro

One of the objectives of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project is to increase the quantity and quality of bird observations from SE Europe, therefore, we took this opportunity to set up a regular EBP meeting in the core area, in Podgorica, Montenegro. The meeting lasted for three days, from 28 till 30 October 2024, and was held in the building of the Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism, with our Montenegrin partners, CZIP, taking care of the logistics.

The first day was dedicated to the regular EBP meeting, where Gabriel Gargallo, EBP project coordinator, presented the last advances of the EBP project, after which we used the opportunity to present the progress on each work task of the ongoing  LIFE EBP Reinforcement project to a larger EBP community. Finally, we finished with the update on the work done within the Bird Flu Radar presented by Ruud Foppen from SOVON.

We used the second day to talk in more details about specific work tasks and activities related to the LIFE project. Petr Voříšek from CSO, gave an overview of the standardised bird monitoring data received from the project partners within the International Census Plots (ICP), which also served as immediate feedback to the partners from SE Europe. From the overview it was clear that the partners have managed to exceed the number of pre-set ICP plots for the given year, and the session ended with a fruitful discussion of partners’ experience from the field and issues they faced, with potential solutions.

Afterwards, we moved to the workshop on EBP data flow implementation, where Gabriel Gargallo and David Martí from ICO gave an overview on the state of the connectivity of all EBP partners regarding the update on including the data for all bird species occdurring in Europe and the protocols information, as well as presenting the internal tool that partners use for this update. The situation of each partner is more diverse here, but it seems that all partners are on a good way to make this connection until the end of this year. Marc Illa from ICO also talked about taxonomy mapping and clearing any doubts with partners on the instructions they received previously.

Finally, we ended the second day with the workshop on sensitive species, by providing the overview of the questions on sensitive species partners answered in advance, and a proposal of how to deal with the sensitive species within the EBP project, followed by an open discussion.

The last day was dedicated to concluding the workshop on Regional Dynamization Campaign (RDC) by finalizing the campaign proposal and setting up final dates. The first part of the workshop was held on-line at the beginning of October, and we used the opportunity of this physical meeting to conclude the work to be done in the following year and a half within the RDC.

Overall, this meeting brought together 36 participants from 18 countries, as well as a lot of interesting discussions and conclusions that were much needed for the progress of the overall EBP project.

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September 26th, 2024

The Regional Dynamization Campaign (RDC) on-line workshop is approaching

The Regional Dynamization Campaign (RDC) plays a crucial role in fulfilling one of the main objectives of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project in boosting overall data collection in SE Europe, both through promotion of participating in on-line bird portals as well as collecting more structured data (e.g. complete lists). By this, we hope to create an environment where more people in the region will have a larger incentive to join the standard bird monitoring as well. 

There are two main points of action within the RDC: organizing data collection challenges each season of the year and working directly with volunteers by organizing specific training courses. 

The first step towards defining the goals and objectives of the campaign is an on-line workshop that will be held during 3 days’ time, from October 7th till October 9th. At the workshop, we expect attendance of partners from 13 countries of the region (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia), that will be sharing their national experience and creating the future steps of the campaign together. During this time, we aim to establish the final design of the campaign, involving all the relevant local organizations to ensure that its main components are adequately fine-tuned to the local needs while keeping its necessary regional scope.

The workshop itself will be divided into 3 main topics arranged by each day. The first day will be dedicated to the data collection challenges, starting from the overall importance of the region for birds to the challenge design and experience in organizing challenges from other countries. We plan to finish with an open debate and input from partners on forming the challenge itself. The second day will be dedicated to training courses for volunteers. It will provide a good platform for sharing the already existing experience od partners, but also from a broader EBP community in training courses. We hope to define the specific needs of each partner and to produce a list and typology of courses to be conducted in each country. The final day will put focus on the communication strategy of the campaign, by providing the framework of communication strategy on a regional level and asking for input from partners on a national level. By this we should establish a coordinated way for communicating the RDC in each country by taking local needs into account. 

In the preparation phase of the workshop, we hope it will be a fruitful meeting for partners, and a place of exchanging ideas and experience in order to fulfil our common goal in increasing the bird observation quality and quantity in SE Europe. 

See the full programme here.

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September 16th, 2024

The task of adding all species and protocols to the new EBP data flow is progressing well

As a critical part of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project, we are currently re-connecting all portals to the EBP data flow with the information of all the species and protocols. See here for further details.

This task involves re-uploading all the data of each portal up to January 2010 and re-start the daily automated updates and has started to speed up over the last few months.

Currently, the work has already been completed in five portals (eBird, Pluto, SOVON Live Atlas, Trektellen and MaltaBirdSightings) and all in all, this means that we have already received data from 71 million bird records from more than 550 bird species and 13 different countries using the new, improved, EBP data flow system.

Moreover, the task has started or is very advanced for three more portals (Artportalen, Artsobservasjoner and DOFBasen) and the system is ready to start receiving the data from four others: Aves-Symfony, Birds.cz, BirdTrack and OpenBirdMaps.

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August 22nd, 2024

Setting up the ICP scheme in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The first surveys under the International Census Plots scheme in Bosnia and Herzegovina were organized in spring 2024. Four fieldworkers conducted bird counts twice during the breeding season across seven designated census plots. This marked the beginning of establishing a long-term monitoring program aimed to fill the current gaps in bird population data collection in the area, as new observers are currently being trained in bird identification and methodology courses.

Two of the areas covered by the new International Census Plots in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Over the past two decades, data on birds in Bosnia and Herzegovina have been gathered as a part of numerous projects, and have provided insights into the dynamics of breeding bird populations in the region. However, the implementation of a large-scale breeding bird monitoring program had been hindered by a lack of support, particularly financial, from state institutions. The most comprehensive data collection was done for the preparation of the European Breeding Bird Atlas 2 (EBBA2), which ensured the country's inclusion in the European ornithological landscape.

The 2024 breeding season was designated as a pilot phase to assess the program's effectiveness and identify any necessary adjustments for future implementation. The plots were selected semi-randomly, focusing on accessible areas for fieldworkers, with each plot consisting of two 1 km transects within randomly chosen 2×2 km squares. The data collected not only contributes to the ICP initiative but also supports further development of a national breeding bird atlas.

Contributed by Nermina Sarajlić

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December 29th, 2023

The 20th EBP meeting brings together 49 people from 21 different countries in Brno (Czech Republic)

The meeting was organized by the Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO) and took place during November 20-21 at the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Brno. 

This time, the EBP meeting had a different format than previous ones as it included a LIFE EBP Reinforcement workshop aimed to support the completion of the EBP data flow by means of adding all the species recorded in Europe and by properly identifying and characterizing all data submitted using particular protocols (e.g. standard monitoring projects, nocmig, project specific field protocols, etc). Moreover, just after this meeting, during November 22-25, a second LIFE EBP Reinforcement workshop was organized at the same place, though this one only was open to the partners of the seven target countries of the LIFE project in SE Europe (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia). 

The participants in front of the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences  

The meeting was attended by 49 persons from 21 different countries and started on Monday afternoon with the welcoming words of Jan Zukal, director of the Institute of Vertebrate Biology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Verena Keller, chair of the EBCC. 

Then the representatives of Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia and Malta gave a brief presentation about each organization and a description of their needs regarding standard bird monitoring/online bird portals and how they would like to meet these needs thanks to the LIFE project. 

The session continued with an overview of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement project, the EBBA2 Live Farmland project and the International Census Plots (ICP) project and finished talking about the protocols table and its relevance to properly identify and characterize all data submitted using more elaborate data collection procedures (e.g. standard monitoring projects, nocmig, project specific field protocols, etc). 

The meeting was attended by 49 persons from 21 different countries

The Tuesday morning session started with an overview about the EBP data standard and the EBP data flow system and with the presentation of the overall approach that will be followed to add the data of the new species and the protocols information (timings, how to deal with new/old data, etc) to the EBP data flow (see LIFE WorPackage 8 for more information on this task). 

The morning session finished discussing about taxonomy. It was agreed that, to develop the LIFE WorPackage 8, the EBP would follow the last version of the HBW-BirdLife taxonomy (version 8.0). It was stressed that this work will also require the mapping of the taxonomy of each local portal to the EBP one, a work that will be carried out by each local portal with the support of the EBP coordination team. 

The first part of the Tuesday afternoon session was devoted to cover some EBP topics that were less directly related to the LIFE project. This included a brief update of the EBP project and the new EFSA-EBP-EURING contract and the presentation of one of the first outputs of this work: the implementation of the Bird Flu Radar in the new Migration Mapping Tool and the creation of an automatic alert system. 

The session continued with the presentation of the results of a paper that analysed the geographical patterns of arrival of 30 common migrant bird species using EBP data and the GBIF Humboldt extension, an extension of the GBIF code that will allow GBIF to correctly store and handle the datasets collected using more structured protocols (e.g. complete lists). 

Coffee breaks gave plenty of space to continue conversations

Finally, it was commented that the next in-person EBP meeting will take place in SE Europe in autumn 2024, most probably October. As the one taking place in Brno, it was pointed out that this meeting will be again a combination of a regular EBP meeting a various LIFE EBP Reinforcement workshops (two linked to the EBP viewer and, thus, of overall interest to the EBP community, and one focused on the partners of SE Europe and the regional dynamization campaign that will be organized in that area in 2025 and 2026). 

The meeting finalised with a session devoted to discuss the use of data collected outside primary areas by EBP and the local partners. Here, representatives from Observation.org, eBird, Ornitho and Trektellen explained which were the technical and legal possibilities of these portals in terms of sharing observations and personal information with the local partners. 

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December 11th, 2023

Training workshop on International Census Plots (ICP) and on-line portals

The participants of the workshop in front of the Institute for Vertebrate Biology

In November (22nd-25th) Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO) organised a training workshop on on-line portals and International Census Plots (ICPs) in Brno (at the Institute for Vertebrate Biology).

The training workshop was held after the regular EuroBirdPortal (EBP) meeting and workshop on EBP data flow, which lasted for two days (20^th-21^st of November). The aim of the training workshop was to introduce the partners of the LIFE EBP Reinforcement Project to the concept and methodology of the standard bird monitoring and ICP, as well as structuring and running a national on-line portal. In total, 20 participants from 12 European countries have attended the training workshop.

The topics of the workshop were divided into four main parts. The first part was led by Petr Voříšek from CSO and focused on questions while setting up a standard bird monitoring scheme, and explanation of the concept and methodology of the ICP, along with the subsequent data management and data checks. Because each country within the project will not have the capacity to start a full-grown national bird monitoring scheme, the idea is to collect the data with the same methodology across countries, which will then be placed into one dataset in order to produce a regional index of population change. Hopefully, with time, the capacities of the countries will increase, and they will have a good starting point for their own national bird monitoring scheme.

Petr Voříšek, from CSO, talking about setting-up a standard bird monitoring scheme

Within the first day, representatives from Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro have presented their own pilot work in starting a monitoring scheme and various issues and challenges they are facing. The main common issue shared across the partners is lack of skilled volunteers for bird monitoring. For example, in Moldova there are currently 10 people doing the pilot monitoring work, in Serbia around 30 people, and in Montenegro some 3 people have joined the pilot scheme. Within this project, a large part will be dedicated in trying to increase the interest of people and their fieldwork capabilities to establish a bigger network of volunteers.

Representatives from Moldova, Serbia and Montenegro presenting their own experiences with bird monitoring

The second part was led by colleagues from Catalan Ornithological Institute (Gabriel Gargallo, Marc Illa and Xavier Riera) and was focused on establishing national on-line portals, from setting up a portal to recruitment of observers and keeping them interested to managing and checking the on-line portal data. It was important to go into details of each section regarding the on-line portals as participants from the key countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) will establish their own national portal as a part of the project and will be responsible for its set-up and long-term running. One part that might be helpful in assembling all issues at one place is the update of the Best Practice Guide that should be produced by the end of 2024.

The colleagues from the Catalan Ornithological Institute lead the section of the workshop on online bird portals 

Third section was presented by Anna Staneva from BirdLife Europe, Alena Klvaňová from CSO and Gabriel Gargallo from ICO about the policy relevance of the data collected through on-line bird portals and standard bird monitoring as well as its implications in science and research. Similarly, more local case studies have been presented from Romania, Spain and Czech Republic in order to serve as an inspiration of what could be done. The section ended with the discussion on local needs of partners and their respective issues and challenges within the framework of national policies.

Finally, we ended the workshop with a day in the field by going through the ICP methodology and different ways of entering the data directly into various applications in the field. Even the cold weather did not stop the enthusiasm of the participants that they will surely transfer to others in their own respective countries. We hope that this project will be an excellent starting point for the partners to increase their capacity and slowly start to develop a larger interest into bird observations and standard bird monitoring within their own countries.

Not even the cold weather stopped the fieldwork session

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October 19th, 2023

International Census Plots: a tool to fill the geographical gaps in bird monitoring in Europe

In order to achieve better data on bird numbers and distribution, we need to develop generic monitoring schemes in parts of Europe where they still do not exist. Setting up and running schemes based on fieldwork by volunteers is a challenge in many parts of the continent and that’s why EBCC started the International Census Plots scheme. By taking part in the scheme, countries can provide their monitoring data to the European dataset and develop comprehensive national schemes in the future. However, this can only happen by providing further support to national coordinators of the scheme.

We need to fill in the gaps in coverage of Europe by bird monitoring

There is no doubt that standardised large-scale monitoring of bird abundances together with distribution atlases provide valuable information for research and conservation. Outputs of the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) have been widely used in international and national policies, and, furthermore, the data collected via PECBMS helped to answer various scientific questions. The first European Breeding Bird Atlas (EBBA1) was used in 3,150 scientific publications  and we expect that EBBA2 will also be widely used for science and policy.

However, there are gaps in our picture of European population trends: large areas, mostly in eastern and southeastern part of the continent have not yet developed monitoring schemes which would cover the whole territory of individual countries.

Countries contributing to European trends and indices produced by PECBMS (2021) 

There are multiple reasons for the gaps. Often, there are only a few field ornithologists and volunteer birdwatchers in these areas. 

The number of fieldworkers contributing to the second European Breeding Bird Atlas (EBBA2) illustrates the geographical bias in capacities for monitoring in Europe. While there were some 40 observers per one 50 km square in some western European countries, there was only one observer per two 50 km squares in the east of the continent

This is usually caused by complex reasons some of which may include less wealthy economic situation and shorter tradition in volunteer field ornithology. Further contributing factors can be poor infrastructure, difficult access to some areas or difficult conditions for the development of NGOs and civic society.

It is difficult, but we can do it

Experience in EBBA2 shows, that despite the difficulties, colleagues in eastern and southeastern Europe can deliver great results. Particularly when their effort is supported by training, capacity building and decent funding.

Coverage of Europe in EBBA1 and EBBA2 documents an increase in the quality of atlas data in eastern and southeastern Europe between the two atlases.

Setting up a full scale national monitoring scheme in the near future is however unrealistic. The capacity must be built up step by step. In the meantime, we can start the monitoring with capacities that are already available and contribute to PECBMS in a relatively short time period via the approach of the International Census Plots (ICP). Such plots, if properly surveyed, can provide data for European population indices and indicators, as well as planned updated maps of distribution and serve as a basis for the full scale national monitoring schemes in the future.

The approach of International Census Plots should help

The approach was proposed within the EBCC in 2000s, but was never put into practice. The idea is that instead of setting up large numbers of census plots in each country individually; the census plots are set up in several countries simultaneously having a lower number of plots in each country. Thus, the overall set of plots will not produce data good enough to calculate reliable national population indices, but should be good enough to generate indices representative of the wider region. Later on, as the monitoring is being conducted at the international census plots, capacity at the national level will increase and once it becomes sufficient, the international census plots will serve as a basis for developing of national schemes.

In ICP, where raw data from several countries will need to be combined for calculation of the population index and trend, caution must be paid to compatibility of the field method across the region where it is applied. While in combination of national population indices as practiced in PECBMS, different field methods don’t pose a problem because national indices instead of raw data are combined, this would be different in ICP. Thus, the field method should be kept the same across the countries participating in ICP as much as possible.

Line transect has been found to serve the purpose the best in ICP and is therefore recommended as a field method in the countries taking part in the scheme.

Raw data from the ICP should be shared in order to allow calculation of regional and European population trends and indices, but the organisations running the national parts of the ICP are the owners of the data. Running a national database and potentially also mobile phone apps for field data recordings poses a further challenge to organisations with limited capacities.

The LIFE EBP Reinforcement will help expand the ICP network in SE Europe.

Some ICP pilot schemes have been developed in Serbia since 2021, where around 30 plots have been surveyed annually since then, and in Moldova since 2022, and these pilots have brough promising results. However, for the ICP to be making a real difference the network of ICP sites had to be further extended and this is exactly what is going to be done now thanks to the LIFE EBP Reinforcement.

Within the LIFE project, the main objective is to further develop the ICP network in Serbia and Moldova but also implement the scheme in five other countries: Bosnia & Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo. The overall target is to have a network of at least 70 ICP sites in the region by the end of 2026.

To do so, among other things, the LIFE project is going to improve the know-how and capacities of the national ICP organizers through an specific training workshop and will seek also for synergies with the online bird portals and their associated apps in order to improve data collection.

We expect that once the ICP network is expanded and run for c. 3-5 years, the data produced will be good enough to contribute to European species trends and indices. Moreover, this data, together with the one already collected by PECBMS and the online bird portals, should also be used in the framework of the EBBA2 Live Farmland project. And in a longer term, hopefully, ICP will develop into fully independent national breeding bird monitoring schemes.

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July 27th, 2023

The LIFE EBP Reinforcement website is ready

The LIFE EuroBirdPortal website is already online. 

The website is very similar to the one produced for the previous LIFE EBP project in 2016. You will find all the basic information about the project (objectives, expected results and work plan) as well as all details about each work package.

The site also has a section with the news and direct links to the EBP viewer and the previous LIFE EBP project website.

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July 17th, 2023

A grant to further improve the capabilities of the EBP project

A new LIFE grant will help to further improve the capabilities of the EBP project during the next years.

The project, entitled “Improving the capabilities of the EuroBirdPortal project in order to boost its contribution towards EU policy objectives under the Birds Directive and the 2030 Biodiversity Strategy", in short "LIFE EBP reinforcement" (project 101104367 — LIFE22-PLP-ES-EBP reinforcement), main aim is to improve the quantity and quality of bird-related data in Europe to enhance their contribution to EU policy objectives under the EU Birds Directive and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030.

To do so, the EBP will closely work with the two other EBCC projects (the European Breeding Bird Atlas 2 (EBBA2) and the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS)), as the combination of their different datasets and know-how will certainly increase the overall value of the policy relevant outputs. 

Specifically, the main objectives of project are:

1) Improving the geographical coverage and the overall quality of the bird-related data collected in Europe by increasing participation, data collection and use of more structured data collection protocols, particularly, in SE and E Europe.

2) Adding all the species recorded in Europe to the EuroBirdPortal (EBP) data flow making full use of the EBP data standard and updating the EBP viewer accordingly.

3) Producing two demonstrative outputs that showcase how the improved capabilities of the EBP project could be applied to help implement key EU Biodiversity Strategy goals.

The project has a duration of three years and a half (July 2023 to December 2026) and an overall cost of 1.110.605,44 €, of which 90% (999.544,89 €) are financed by the European Union.

The LIFE EBP reinforcement will be coordinated by the Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF) and has nine associated beneficiaries: the Catalan Ornithological Institute (ICO), the Czech Society for Ornithology (CSO), the Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology (SOVON), the Bulgarian Society for the Protection of Birds (BSPB), the Macedonian Ecological Society (MES), the Ornithological society "Naše ptice" (OD NASE PTICE), the Romanian Ornithological Society (SOR), the Center for Protection and Research of birds of Montenegro (CZIP) and the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia (BPSSS).

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