Population estimates of waders on Spanish non-estuarine coasts

The 1999/2000 Non-Estuarine Coastal Waterbird Survey in Spain (Spain-NEWS) aimed to provide population estimates for waders wintering on the Spanish non-estuarine coast. The survey covered 232 km or 6% of the country’s non-estuarine coast. A total of 628 waders of 16 species were recorded during the survey. These data and information from other regional or species-specific surveys were used to calculate minimum population estimates for 2,253 km or 56% of the Spanish non-estuarine coastline (surveys have concentrated on the most important areas for waders and thus only small numbers of birds are thought to winter on the remaining 44% of the coast). We estimated that a minimum of 9,190 waders of 21 species winter on the country’s non-estuarine coast. Population estimates for the three species which occur on the Spanish non-estuarine coast in numbers which surpass 1% of estimated biogeographic populations

(Wetlands International 2006) are as follows: 1,434 Sanderling Calidris alba (1.2%), 758 Purple Sandpiper C. maritima (1.0%) and 1,763 Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres (1.2%). The inclusion of new data from non-estuarine areas would increase the most recent estimate of the number of waders wintering in Spain by 3.7%, the most significant increases being for Purple

Sandpiper (252%), Whimbrel Numenius phaeopus (22.6%), Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos (64.8%) and Ruddy Turnstone (50.6%).