While checklists are still being shared with us, it is clear that the 2016 World Shorebirds Day and Global Shorebird Counting campaign met the expectations and set new records. The registration for the Global Shorebird Counting suggested a very high interest in this popular citizen science program but as checklists were accepted the numbers grew even higher.
In the short history of the Global Shorebird Counting Program we have got a total of 1,654 checklists. The growth from the 2015 counts is a stunning 52,48% which is most probably a result of an intensive 6 weeks long campaign, a little bit longer counting period and most importantly the amazing support from some key organisations in the Americas.
Another awesome result from this year is the number of reported shorebird species during the counts. Despite the almost complete lack of participation from the African continent, south of the Sahara, we managed to reach 126 recorded shorebird species which is 13 species more than in 2015. The only one South African checklist made a big difference in the number of shorebird species seen between 2–6 September. In 2014 and 2015 133 shorebird species have been recorded during Global Shorebird Counting and we even could still manage to add a few more waders what hadn’t been seen in the previous years. These are as follows:
Double-striped Thick-knee
Black Stilt
Banded Lapwing
Yellow-wattled Lapwing
Tawny-throated Dotterel
Pied Plover
Comb-crested Jacana
Pheasant-tailed Jacana
Bronze-winged Jacana
African Snipe
Temminck’s Courser
Tawny-throated Dotterel by Leandro Herrainz on 500px.com. Photo was embedded from Leandro Herrainz portfolio on 500px.com. All rights reserved to Leandro Herrainz.
On the other hand we missed quite a few species what was reported in previous years and these are as follows:
Magellanic Plover
Eurasian Thick-knee
Water Thick-knee
Spotted Thick-knee
Beach Thick-knee
Banded Stilt
Spur-winged Lapwing
Grey-headed Lapwing
Wattled Lapwing
Red-kneed Dotterel
New Zealand Plover
White-fronted Plover
Oriental Plover
Eurasian Woodcock
Pin-tailed Snipe
Great Snipe
Spoon-billed Sandpiper
Cream-colored Courser
Burchell’s Courser
Double-banded Courser
Collared Pratincole
Black-winged Pratincole
Cream-coloured courser by Gökhan Coral on 500px.com. Photo was embedded from Gökhan Coral’s 500px.com portfolio. All rights reserved to Gökham Coral.
Obviously we have a lot to do for having a lot more returning program participants and also covering the most important sites as well. We also have to make the goals of Global Shorebird Counting Program clearer with standardized counting methods. For making these fine tunings World Shorebirds Day has a brand new advisory team which helps to find the right direction and to reach more people from the less covered areas.
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