HELCOM Monitoring Programme topic: Birds

The aim of the programme is to provide data to assess the status, abundance, distribution and population structure of waterbirds in the Baltic. Waterbird monitoring can also give information on the state of the sea and of the benthic habitats. The monitoring supports the HELCOM core indicators and corresponding MSFD GES criteria and methodological standards for Descriptors 1 and 4.

There are two types of monitoring activities in the Baltic Sea region: monitoring of resting, migrating or moulting birds (wintering) and monitoring of breeding birds. For marine bird health monitoring is limited to the white-tailed sea eagle.

Monitoring of breeding birds varies between countries in relation to the species monitored, the start of the time series, and the temporal resolution of monitoring which ranges from annual monitoring to every third year depending on the species. Some countries have state financed monitoring programmes in place, while in some countries monitoring is carried out by volunteers.

All Baltic Sea countries have been carrying out ground-count-based coastal surveys for wintering birds with some time series starting as early as the 1960s. Most countries run these coastal counts as volunteer programmes. Offshore surveys using both ship and plane are also carried out in most countries.

National monitoring of breeding and wintering birds is taking place in almost all Baltic Sea countries either by the state or by volunteers. Regular monitoring is implemented by coastal counts only. Coordinated coverage of offshore parts has been initiated but is not implemented on a regular basis yet. Regionally coordinated guidelines and a database are under development for the Baltic to ensure that methods and the data collected are comparable and could support HELCOM assessments and core indicators as well as HD and BD assessments. A common, regionally agreed quality assurance programme is missing. National quality assurance and quality control exist.

• HELCOM
• Essential Ocean subvariables (EOV subvariables) & Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)
  • Marine birds abundance
  • Marine birds distribution
  • Marine birds ecosystem functioning - ecosystem disturbances
• GOOS Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs)
  • Marine birds abundance and distribution