Asian Waterbird Census

Contents

As the year of 2020 draws to a close, we take a quick stock of the year and share plans for the coming year.  

Despite the COVID restrictions, a lot of great work has taken place to advance monitoring, awareness raising and conservation of waterbirds and wetlands in the region. 

Since the publication of the last update in the July 2020 newsletter, coordinators have made a special effort to provide updates and many gaps have been filled.  

It is encouraging to hear about plans being made for the AWC 2021 in many countries and regions. With the ongoing and unfolding coronavirus situation, it is important to take whatever additional precautions are necessary. Please be sure to follow the guidance of your national or local officials, the safety of counters and those they come into contact with are of the upmost importance. 

If you’re not a bird counter but want to support the census, consider becoming a supporter of the Waterbird Fund. This fund aims to support monitoring of waterbirds and their wetlands around the world. The AWC as part of the global IWC is a highly cost effective counting effort as many of the counts are completed by volunteers. That means a little support can go a very long way to ensuring wetlands around the world are counted. 

Number of wetland visits reported during the AWC 2016-2020

We wish you, your families and friends all a safe and happy 2021 - and a successful AWC 2021 too. 

Dr Taej Mundkur, AWC Regional Coordinator & 
Tom Langendoen, AWC Database Manager 

AWC 2016-2020 draft report 

The draft regional summaries of national count totals and species count totals from the AWC between 2016-2020 are now online. By default, the table shows counts from January only and is also set to show numbers for waterbirds only. You can adjust these settings with the filters on the left and on the top of the table. 

If you spot mistakes in the data or have missing data to include do let us know on awc@wetlands.org. 

Dr BM Parasharya our AWC Coordinator of Gujarat state in western India for many decades, sadly passed away in October due to COVID-19 complications. An obituary to him is in the latest issue of Flamingo (pp 85-86) and is free to download here. 

• The 1st East Asian-Australasian Flyway Shorebird Science Meeting successfully took place as an online virtual meeting from 3 to 5 November 2020 with many interesting presentations including from the AWC network and Coordinators. Participants joined live online discussions, workshops, 5 keynote talks and 80 presentations across 18 sessions that addressed a wide range of topics on shorebird monitoring, research and conservation. Almost 100 experts and students showcased their activities within the EAAF flyway and beyond. The meeting co-hosted by National Institute of Ecology (NIE) from the Republic of Korea, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Parks Board in Singapore, the Conservation of Arctic Flora and Fauna’s International Secretariat (CAFF), and the University of Queensland. You can find the report here.
• A webinar on migratory waterbirds in Bahasa Indonesia DISKUSI BURUNG MIGRASI INDONESIA SERI 3: Status Perlindungan Burung Bermigrasi di Indonesia was organised by Yayasan Lahan Bahasa and Indonesian Ornithologist' Union (IdOU) on 7 October 2020.  The Key Note Speaker was The Director General of Conservation of Natural Resources and Ecosystem, Ministry of Environment and Forestry with presentations by the AWC national coordinators and others. More here. 
• AWC meetings have been held in many countries, including India, the Philippines and Malaysia. These national meetings provide updates and feedback to the counting networks and have helped with planning for the 2021 counts. Our sincere thanks to the coordinators and count networks for their continuing efforts for the AWC in these exceptional circumstances.  
• 2020 Yellow & Bohai Sea Coastal Wetlands Symposium – Yancheng organised its fourth annual symposium as a live and online event. Dr Taej Mundkur presented on the importance of coordinated waterbird monitoring and the AWC. Here is a link to a video recording of the symposium and photo gallery.

• The latest newsletter for the East Asian - Australasian Flyway Partnership was recently issued, see here. 
• The China Coastal Waterbird Census Report 2012-2019 has been published, a major report for one of the most important waterbird areas in the East Asian - Australasian Flyway.
• BirdLife International have just published the Dec 2020 global checklist with an update of the Global IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Following extensive consultation and several assessments of a number of species worldwide, there have been many changes to the Red List. For the waterbirds of the Asia Pacific, six species are doing better while two have been uplisted. While this may be good news, we should recognise that the Asia-Pacific is home to a number of waterbird species for which there is very poor information on population size estimates or population trends. Plans are underway to initiate consultation to produce the first EAAF Conservation Status Review in 2021 to get a better understanding of the current status of many species and identify knowledge gaps. The work is being led by Wetlands International with the EAAFP Secretariat. To contribute to this, do contact wpe@wetlands.org.

• 2-17 January: Asian Waterbird Census 2021 

• 15-17 January: 2021 International Black-faced Spoonbill Census:  

• 15-31 January: Spoon-billed Sandpiper Winter Census 

• End of January: First coordinated Indian Skimmer count  

• 2 February: World Wetlands Day (materials are available here)