BirdLife Malta has long recognised the importance of systematic bird monitoring. Since its inception in 1962, its members have engaged in a wide range of monitoring activities, including the study of both migratory and resident birds through observations and bird ringing. Notably, the monitoring of Malta’s three breeding seabird species through ringing has been ongoing since the 1960s, making it one of the longest-standing seabird monitoring programmes in the Mediterranean and Europe. Following Malta’s accession to the EU, efforts to establish a standardised breeding bird monitoring programme culminated in the publication of the country’s first Breeding Bird Atlas in 2008.
New research based on the PECBMS data suggests conservation efforts could more effectively identify and protect bird species at greatest risk from climate change by better understanding the range of specific conditions they need to thrive. The study, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) and co-authorised by scientists from Lisbon University, BTO and CSO, examined the relationship between the extent of the climatic conditions that species tolerate and in which populations are able to survive - known as climatic niche breadth - and their likelihood of declining in response to climate change.
We sincerely invite you to the PECBMS workshop, held on 31 March at 3 PM in Riga, Latvia, in the House of Nature of the Academic Centre of the University of Latvia during the EBCC conference Bird Numbers. We bring the complete programme and look forward to meeting many of you.
In 2023, the Dutch breeding bird monitoring program had been running for 40 years. The program goes back to the beginning of the previous century when it started with counting nests of conspicuous birds like the Grey heron. Although the fieldwork method (territory mapping) has remained essentially the same since its start in 1984, many aspects regarding the management and implementation of the scheme have changed.
Collecting data with only a one-year delay has become the golden PECBMS standard. We are grateful to all the national coordinators for their efforts to deliver their data up to 2023.
This report presents updated population trends and indices of 170 wild European bird species for 1980–2023 produced by the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) in 2024. The species trends presented are for an extended period (from 1980 until 2023) and the last ten years (2014–2023).
The Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) presents a set of updated European Wild Bird Indices (indicators) covering 1980–2023. The outputs, based on data for 168 wild bird species, come from 30 European countries. We thank all the national coordinators for their efforts to cope with the new programs and the thousands of volunteers counting birds in the field.
We are pleased to announce the release of the latest bulletin, Biuletyn Monitoringu Przyrody 28, summarising the results of work carried out within the framework of the Monitoring of Common Birds of Poland (MPP) in the breeding seasons 2021–2023 and migration-winter seasons 2021/22–2023/24. The publication contains results from 34 monitoring programs, including four new ones that began in 2021: the Common Urban Bird Survey, the Mountain Bird Survey, the Marsh Tern Survey, and the Meadow Waders Survey.
The recommendation to suspend hunting temporarily from 2021, made by an international consortium of scientists led by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), has allowed a rapid population recovery in this threatened species.
