Background

The publication of the European Breeding Bird Atlas 2 (EBBA2) and its online version (www.ebba2.info) represented a milestone for European ornithology. EBBA2 constitutes the most up-to-date source of information on distribution and abundance of breeding birds across Europe and on the changes in distributions between the 1980s and the 2010s (30 years apart).

The idea of updating data on breeding bird distributions on a more frequent and regular basis, which received the name of EBBA Live, was presented and discussed in the EBBA2 workshop in Lucerne (Switzerland) in April 2022, during the 22^nd EBCC conference. Conscious of the amount of work involved in determining bird distributions, EBBA Live is a very ambitious project. Therefore, an initial pilot project was considered necessary to evaluate its feasibility and the interest in its outcomes. In this context, the EBBA2 coordination team, on behalf of the EBCC Board, proposed the development of a small project for a subset of bird species based on site-level data from the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme (PECBMS) and data from the EuroBirdPortal (EBP). The group of farmland birds was proposed as a candidate for this project for its overall decline and known interest for conservation. The idea was received with general enthusiasm from EBBA2 national coordinators, researchers and other attendees. This pilot project was called EBBA Live Farmland.

Objectives

The products expected from EBBA Live Farmland are a series of maps and analyses for c. 50 farmland birds. The target bird list consist of species included in the Farmland Bird Indicator (FBI) together with a few other species categorised in EBBA2 as agricultural/grassland species. More specifically the project aims to produce: i) updated breeding occurrence maps at 50-km resolution, ii) updated 10-km modelled maps and iii) analyses of the coverage to determine gaps of data and iv) maps of change in distribution since EBBA2 for areas suitable for the comparison.

The project aims to publish its outputs online and make maps and data available for national coordinators for their potential use in research, conservation or policy-related documents such as the Article 12 reporting in EU countries. Finally, EBBA Live Farmland should be a new contribution to the goals of the EBCC and the strengthening of its partnership.

Time plan

EBBA Live Farmland will have two phases, which are planned according to expected capacities and data availability.

 Phase I: Years 2022–2023. PECBMS+ area

In the first phase, site-level data of PEBCMS from the period 2018–2022 will be used to generate the above-mentioned pilot maps. The target geographical area will cover countries participating in PECBMS, plus a few others with common bird monitoring data available for the project. For example, adding data from the monitoring plots recently surveyed in the western Balkans could be particularly promising. Maps from this first phase are expected to be available by the end of 2023.

• Phase II: Years 2024–2026. Europe

Currently, the EBP project collects a large amount of data but only a minority of farmland birds are included. In the context of a future extension of the EBP species list, the second phase of this project will allow the incorporation of EBP data in addition to PECBMS site-level data and, thus, produce better-quality maps. The target geographical area will potentially be the whole of Europe but large gaps are expected, particularly in the east. Maps from this second phase should be available by the end of 2026.

Participation

The project is open to the participation of the EBCC community, in particular national organisations in charge of the common bird monitoring schemes included in PECBMS (Phase I & II) and online portals included in EBP (Phase II). These projects will constitute the basis of the data used to build the maps. In addition, EBBA2 coordinators will also be asked to play a key role in the validation of the data and the quality of the final maps.

Coordination

EBBA Live Farmland is an EBCC project that is coordinated by the EBBA2 team in close collaboration with PECBMS and EBP teams and under the supervision of a Steering Committee composed of members of the EBCC Board and the EBCC projects. The coordinators will soon contact national partners with further details on the participation in the project. The first phase of the project is supported by EUROPABON as a demonstrative case study of the possibilities to provide timely and relevant data to assess policy targets.

Sergi Herrando

September 2022

Contact: ornitologia@ornitologia.org