| |  | Dear all,The days are counting down to our conference in Switzerland, and I am eagerly awaiting seeing old friends and colleagues, and meeting new ones. As the first item below points out, you have only two days left to register if you haven’t done so already. I look forward to seeing as many of you as possible there. However, there will be sadness that friends and colleagues from Ukraine will not be able to attend, and our thoughts will be with them and their compatriots. The EBCC believes in goodwill, cooperation and tolerance. Just as the Swallows returning to Europe this spring will be unhindered by borders, we wish for a world where we can all cooperate and stand in solidarity regardless of nationality, and will strive to maintain our collaborations across the continent. Best wishes Mark |  | | Last chance to register for Bird Numbers 2022 It is your last chance to register for our conference in Lucerne. Registration is open until 20 March. The updated programme covers a wide range of topics. Most of the pandemic-related measures in Switzerland have been lifted. In particular, a Covid Certificate is no longer required for restaurants or the conference venue. |
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| | | Last year, many of you were part of the #RestoreNature movement, where over 100,000 people demanded the EU to develop a strong, ambitious nature restoration law. And - thanks to your support - it looked like we were going to get one. But now, vested interests, including the farm and forestry lobbies, are ruthlessly instrumentalising the war in Ukraine to derail this important initiative. So, we ask you to once again stand up for nature, and help us make this law a reality. The European Commission will meet on Monday to decide the fate of its proposal. We need your help to urge the Commission not to delay the law. It doesn’t matter if you live in the EU or not, your voice matters! |
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| | | Bird Census News 34/2In the new issue of BCN, you can read about the Danish Common Bird Census websites, and the distribution of a relatively isolated breeding population of Goosander in the Alpine region in Switzerland. Although a 21% population size increase was noted between 1998 and 2013–2016, there are apparent regional differences. A significant decline appeared in the west, probably caused by the decrease of fish populations, removal of nesting trees, and predation by Yellow-legged Gulls. The BCN also provides an introduction to two EBCC board members – Henning Heldbjerg, the Delegates Officer and Bird Census News editing team member, and Danae Portolou, the Communications Officer. |
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|  | A new metric accurately quantifies species’ habitat association and degree of specializationIn February, scientists from the University of East Anglia in collaboration with the PECBMS network published new research on species’ habitat association in Ecological Indicators. They explored the ‘relative habitat use’ (RHU) metric as a means of quantifying species’ habitat association and degree of specialization. The authors recommend the RHU metric as a useful tool in conservation management strategies to protect habitat specialists and their habitats and thus support national and international progress towards reaching biodiversity targets. | | | | EBBA2 maps are available online for freeA total of 596 bird species breed in Europe. View the maps to know where they breed, how many there are, and how their distribution has changed since the 1980s. The European Breeding Bird Atlas web version shows all the maps from EBBA1 and EBBA2, including those that could not be published in the book for space reasons. Did you know that all maps can be downloaded as image files? |
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|  | PECBMS 2nd webinarOn Tuesday 1 March, the second PECBMS webinar took place on Zoom, covering RTRIM-shell and related topics. We guided the national coordinators through the process from the data preparation to data validation in the online tool. Moreover, Anna Gamero introduced the new site-level data online tool which will be accessible to all the coordinators very soon. We encourage the PECBMS network to join the Slack forum to share ideas and discuss the challenges. | | New Red List of breeding birds in Switzerland published | | The Red List of threatened breeding birds in Switzerland was revised in 2021 by the Swiss Ornithological Institute after ten years, following the guidelines of the IUCN. Since 2010, six species have been newly evaluated and a total of 205 species have been assessed. The number of critically endangered species has increased by four to 25. The proportion of species considered threatened was around 40%, an additional 20% were classified as Near Threatened. In agricultural habitats and wetlands, the number of threatened species is particularly high. The Red List 2021 is published in German, French, and (later) Italian and can be downloaded from the website of the Federal Department of the Environment. An additional report with the basics, background of the classifications, and documentation of evaluated species was published by the Swiss Ornithological Institute and is available in German. |
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| The future distribution of wetland birds in EuropeIn February, a team of researchers including many EBCC network members published a study of future wetland birds distribution in Europe in Environmental Research Letters. The authors fitted the species distribution models with data collected for EBBA1 and climate and land-use data to predict distributional changes over a century, and compared them to observed annual changes in range size over a time period of 30 years using data from the EBBA2. The models successfully predicted ca. 75% of the 64 bird species to contract their breeding range in the future, while the remaining species were predicted to expand their breeding ranges northward. The results highlight the need for wetland creation and restoration to improve wetland birds' resilience to the expected environmental changes in the future. | | | | Virtual event on nature restorationOn 10 March, BirdLife Europe, the Endangered Landscapes Programme and UNEP-WCMC organised a webinar called The rewards of nature restoration: Will the new EU law deliver? Ahead of the release of the EU Commission’s proposal for a Nature Restoration Law, the event reflected, together with a panel of decision-makers and experts, on how this law can be a real game changer for both the people and the nature of Europe, if it is done is the right way. Visit a virtual photo exhibition on the Rewards of Nature Restoration from the people who have done restoration on the ground, and see the fruit of their labour. | |
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| | | Meet national coordinators involved in the PECBMSChristina Ieronymidou has been the Monitoring and Research Coordinator at BirdLife Cyprus since 2017. She is responsible for coordinating the organisation’s bird monitoring programmes, including the Common Breeding Birds Monitoring Scheme (CBMS), and also contributes to ongoing conservation projects. Before joining BirdLife Cyprus, Christina worked at BirdLife International, where she was involved in the production of the 2015 European Red List of Birds. She has a Ph.D. on Cyprus farmland birds and their habitats and has a soft spot for the Cyprus Scops Owl, which was the subject of her Master’s thesis and the gateway into the world of birds and the BirdLife family. |
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