Ecosystem 41: Trends of Migratory Birds

The Wadden Sea World Heritage site is one of the world’s most important wetlands for migratory waterbirds. It is the single most important staging and moulting area and an important wintering area for waterbirds on the East Atlantic Flyway from the Arctic to South Africa. The Expert Group Migratory Birds (EG MB) program is carried out in the framework of the Trilateral Monitoring and Assessment Program (TMAP) and constitutes an internationally coordinated long-term monitoring program. It covers a large connected ecoregion stretching from Den Helder in the Netherlands to Esbjerg in Denmark; regular ground counts for most species and areas plus aerial and boat counts for sea ducks involves hundreds of observers and several institutes and agencies.