Results of a coordinated count of Eurasian Golden Plovers Pluvialis apricaria in Europe during October 2008

Recent decades have seen a growing interest in the changing distribution and abundance of Eurasian Golden Plovers Pluvialis apricaria in NW Europe. As one of a handful of wader species that falls through the net of standard estuarine wader monitoring in Europe it requires dedicated surveys to enumerate its status (Gillings 2005). For the first time a coordinated survey in 2003, organised by the International Wader Study Group (IWSG), encompassed the main countries where birds of Scandinavian/Russian breeding origin were concentrated on passage in October (Rasmussen & Gillings 2007) but with record counts in S Sweden, and no organised surveying further north or east, questions remained as to how many birds were missed, for example in the Baltic. Coverage of birds from the Iceland/Faeroes flyway was poor, partly due to lack of coverage in Iceland, but also because once individuals arrive in Britain and Ireland they spread over a very large area and coordinated census coverage is not feasible. The International Wader Study Group “International Workshop on Passage and Wintering Eurasian Golden Plovers” held in 2005 in Cork, Ireland, recommended a rolling programme of coordinated counts every 6 years (Gillings 2005) and this paper reports on the second international survey in October 2008. For further discussion of flyway definitions and taxonomic issues see Rasmussen & Gillings (2007). Gillings, S., Avontins, A., Crowe, O., Dalakchieva, S., Devos, K., Elts, J., Green, M., Gunnarsson, T.G., Kleefstra, R., Kubelka, V., Lehtiniemi, T., Meissner, W., Pakstyte, E., Rasmussen, L., Szimuly, G. & Wahl, J. 2012. Results of a coordinated count of Eurasian Golden Plovers Pluvialis apricaria in Europe during October 2008. Wader Study Group Bull. 119(2): 125–128.