October 2003 International Golden Plover Survey

For a species like the Golden Plover that moves rapidly through a series of countries on its migrations, a coordinated approach to study and conservation is essential. The map shows movements of Golden Plovers, with lines indicating all international movements of Golden Plovers ringed or recovered in Britain. In October the majority of Golden Plovers are still fairly well north, in Iceland and south Scandinavia, with fewer in Britain and the Netherlands. The survey was therefore centred around southern Scandinavia and Germany and aimed to gain a good estimate of the number of Golden Plovers on passage from the Scandinavian/Russian breeding populations.

The BTO aided the survey by summarising counts of Golden Plovers from the Wetland Bird Survey (WeBS) and by collating casual records of large flocks in Britain and Northern Ireland during the week of 8th to 15th Octobers 2003.

Results

After carefully collating the counts, and ensuring there had been no double counting, we estimated that 142,983 Golden Plovers were counted in Britain and Northern Ireland in October 2003. Around 45% of these birds were seen on wetland sites, and the remainder on farmland. The count was distributed as follows: 57% in England, 23% in Scotland, 16% in Northern Ireland, and 4% in Wales. The map below shows the distribution of records. This total does not constitute a new population estimate for October because although birds on wetlands were exhaustively counted there were likely to have been large gaps in coverage on lowland farmland. Future surveys need to carefully target known important wetland sites and the large numbers that occur in scattered farmland localities.

Discussion

This count of 143,000, when added to counts from countries from Sweden south to The Netherlands, gave a combined total of around 1 million Golden Plovers. This is the first time Golden Plovers have been counted on such a large scale, but it will not be the last. Interest in Golden Plovers is increasing all the time. For instance, a new monitoring scheme now surveys Golden Plovers and Lapwings throughout France every January. Acknowledging this growing interest, we organised a workshop for Golden Plover workers at the annual International Wader Study Group conference in 2005. Delegates from across Europe agreed to work towards an ambitious follow-up survey in October 2008. Of course, the BTO will be leading in providing information on plovers in Britain in 2008 and we hope to rely on your support to make this a success. You can find a full report on the workshop here.