Manual: Monitoring Breeding Success of Coastal Breeding Birds in the Wadden Sea

Methodological Guidelines and Field Work Manual

Second version, April 2011

Since 1991, breeding bird surveys in the International Wadden Sea have been carried out as part of the Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Program (TMAP) and have proven to be a powerful tool to assess status, distribution and population changes in breeding birds in the Wadden Sea (Fleet et al. 1994, Melter et al. 1997, Rasmussen et al. 2001, Essink et al. 2005, Koffijberg et al. 2006). This is not only relevant with respect to local conservation and management issues, like evaluation of targets in the trilateral Wadden Sea Plan, but it also provides the necessary input for implementation of the EU Birds- and Habitats Directives. The scheme is supported by numerous NGOs, governmental agencies and volunteer bird counters, that are responsible for coordination and fieldwork in Denmark, Schleswig-Holstein, Niedersachsen/Hamburg and The Netherlands. Results of the surveys are published regularly as Wadden Sea Ecosystem (Koffijberg et al. 2006) or at the website of the Wadden Sea Secretariat, CWSS.

Authors: Kees Koffijberg, Stefan Schrader & Veit Hennig on behalf of Joint Monitoring Group for Breeding Birds (JMBB)