Mid-winter count of water birds and other bird species in Bulgaria

Study Extent

The Mid-Winter Count of Waterfowl is carried out according to a standard methodology . It takes place annually in thee to four days around the second weekend of January (in general between 10th and 17th January for the reported period), where in total 265 wetlands, including rivers and the Black sea Coast (according predefined list) are visited by in total of 43 teams of experts and volunteers. The country is divided into regions, which are covered by separate teams. Each team has a predefined route and wetlands they cover each year. At least one professional ornithologist or ornithologist with many years of experience in field identification of waterfowl participates in each team. Data is collected in notebooks for the period 1997 – 2015 with real coordinates, and then processed electronically. Since 2016 data are collected through the mobile application SmartBirds Pro and directly incorporated in the SmartBirds Information System (https://smartbirds.org/). Data collected contain: date and hour of observation, observer, location (including exact geographical location), weather conditions, wetland condition, species name, number of individuals observed and additional notes. The smaller wetlands are observed from a single observation point, while the larger wetlands, river streams (Danube, Maritsa, Tundzha, Osam, Ogosta, Yantra, Iskar, Struma, etc.) and the Black Sea Coast are observed from more predefined observation points, in order to ensure full coverage of wetlands.

Sampling

At wetlands full count of water birds and other bird species is carried out with following specifics: geese are counted at sunrise at roosting sites at wetland or sea at time they take off to foraging areas; cormorants are counted at dusk when they come to roosting sites. Both geese and cormorants are not counted during the day unless the birds are observed very far from known roosts or the roosts of these species in the given region are not known.

Quality Control

The mobile application SmartBirds Pro, which is used for data collection has mechanisms to minimise the errors during the data entry, such as predefined lists of species, lists of meteorological conditions, status of species, as well as obligatory fields, which prevents recording with missing key information. Data collected are checked for completeness, consistency and content by the monitoring coordinator. Further on the content of the data is double checked by database moderators.

Method steps

1. During survey work, observers record each individual bird.

N/A

1. Aves
   rank: kingdom

Bulgaria