Our Study Sites
Australia - Port Phillip Bay
A variety of study sites are used in Australia, mostly on the western side of Port Phillip Bay, Victoria. The main study sites are part of the Ramsar-listed western shoreline, they are subcoastal wetlands on a low energy marine shore. The sites are: 1) Cheetham Wetlands (37o 53’ 56”S, 144o 47’ 33”E; 420 ha), a…
Belarus - Turov Meadow
The location of the study site is here: https://goo.gl/maps/Lyz6XrP7jzo Turov Meadow is a biological reserve of local importance an Important Birds Area (IBA) located in South Belarus. It’s a breeding place for rare species such as Terek Sandpiper, Black-tailed godwit, Great snipe, Lapwing, Ringed plover, Marsh sandpiper, Redshank. It’s the largest water meadow in Europe…
Cape Verde - Maio Island
The semi-desert island of Maio is a home to a large array of species including the Greater Hoopoe-lark (Alaemon alaudipes), the endemic Jago Sparrow (Passer iagoensis) and the White-faced Storm Petrel (Pelagodroma marina). The Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) can be found across the entire island around different lagoons - Boca Lagoa, Lagoa Cimidor, Morro lagoon…
China Chapter of ÉLVONAL Shorebird Science
In January of 2020, Chinese ornithologists who are working on plover breeding biology launched a China Chapter of ÉLVONAL Shorebird Sciences to promote communication and collaboration of breeding shorebird studies in the country. The chapter currently include researchers and students from five universities in China. Currently, the Chapter includes five PIs, six postdocs. four PhD…
Madagascar
content credit goes to William Jones Fieldwork on shorebirds in Madagascar has been going continuously in some form since 2001. In the early days, Tamás Székely and Sama Zefania scoured the western coastline for the perfect field site for a long-term project. For several years, field work was carried out at Lake Tsimanampetsotsa, in the…
Portugal - Samouco saltpan complex
Coastal saltpans are man-made habitats exploited for the extraction of salt, by solar and wind evaporation of seawater in a series of shallow interconnected evaporation ponds varying in size, water depth and separated by dykes. When the intertidal flats are no longer available as the tide advances, shorebirds congregate in dense flocks at the saltpans…
Russia - Tobseda
Tobseda is a small abandoned village on the Arctic coast of Western Russia, 68°35’25.9″N 52°17’23.8″E. The 10km2 area surrounding the village contains a great variety of habitats, including shallow lakes, mud flats, swampy ground, meadows, scrubby grassland and sand dunes. These habitats support an extremely high density of waders, with ~30 nests found within 1km of…
Tunisia - New study site in North Africa
written by Hela Boughdiri In late March 2022, a team from ÉLVONAL group led for the first time a study on the Kentish plover (Charadrius alexandrinus) in Tunisia. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the abundance, the distribution, the nests characteristics as well as the breeding status of this species on the…