Monitoring of wintering waterfowl

The purpose of the counts in this project is to obtain an insight into the numbers, trends and distribution of waterbirds that stay in our wetlands during the winter or the migration period. Since 1979/80, in Flanders, six mid-month counts have been organised every winter (October-March). In each count, as many sites as possible are visited that are of importance to waterfowl. Some 400 amateur field ornithologists are involved in the performance of the counts. The coordination of the counts and the management of the database have been the responsibility of the Research Institute for Nature and Forest since 1986. In a number of internationally important wetlands, the Institute also performs additional, more frequent counts of waterfowl. Since 1967, there has been collaboration with international waterbird counts, the most important being the annual International Waterbird Census. This international census is coordinated by Wetlands International and is an important basis for the protection of wetlands under the Ramsar Convention and the European Birds Directive. Data entry is done online.