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A census was carried out using the method of transects along stretches of coast of the Province of Trapani in order to estimate the wintering population of Common Sandpiper and Ruddy Turnstone. Although the International Waterbird Census (IWC) provides accurate estimation of wintering waders in Italy, the number of wintering individuals of Common Sandpiper Actitis hypoleucos and Ruddy Turnstone Arenaria interpres are strongly underestimated. The reason for this underestimation lies in the type of habitat they are used to populate along with the solitary life habits of the Common Sandpiper. To address this issue, we inspected 46.9 km of coastline where we recorded to 92 Ruddy Turnstones and 56 Common Sandpipers. For both species, the sites (coast) where bird-sightings occurred were marked with georeferenced data and classified as harbour area, sandy, rocky (including vermetid reefs) and posidonia banquettes. For each species, the IKA (Index of Abundance per Kilometer) was calculated, both global index and relative to each type of coast. As for the Common Sandpiper we observed 87 individuals, between transects and spot observations in the province of Trapani, which is the 22% of the whole wintering population estimated in Italy. Notably, even greater is the importance of our observations of the Ruddy Turnstone, which accounting for up to 154 individuals corresponds to the 71% of the whole Italian wintering population. Projection of these data to the entire Italian coast allows estimating a wintering population in Italy much larger than that reported so far, especially for the Common Sandpiper, which uses not only the sea cost but also inland wetlands and rivers as suitable wintering habitats for wintering.

Sandy coasts are specific habitats of high ecological significance for many species of shorebirds. The Gulf of Catania, in the Eastern coast of Sicily, is considered one of the most important sandy coastal areas of the region for the wintering of different species of Charadriidae and Scolopacidae, also due to the presence of River Simeto's mouth and other freshwater streams. Since the area has been subject to many changes in the last few decades and recent data were not available, a ten-year monitoring of the wintering shorebird community has been carried out, from January 2011 to January 2020, to understand its current ecological role and to update the knowledge about numbers and trends of Sicilian wintering shorebirds along the coast. A total of 3,171 individuals and 16 different species were observed, including a considerable amount of individuals of Calidris alba and Charadrius alexandrinus, despite the latter showed an 80% decrease in number in the last 20 years in the area. For each species, maximum numbers observed per winter and related five-year averages, estimates, IKA (Index of Abundance per Kilometre) and percentages in relation to the national wintering population have been reported. Furthermore, data about species associations were collected and analysed. This survey shows how the ecological value of River Simeto's mouth has decreased considerably in the last decades in favour of other locations, such as the mouth of Canale Arci, where almost 50% of the birds were observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[In 2008-2014 wader and seabird nesting pairs were censused along the 220-km long coastline of the NE Adriatic Sea, in the Veneto and Friuli-Venezia Giulia regions (NE Italy). Fourteen species were regularly breeding, with an annual mean of 20,610 pairs (±1553, 1 SD). The most abundant species was the Yellow-legged Gull (about 13,400 pairs on average, 65% of the whole population of the study area), followed by the Common Tern (1670 pairs, 8.1%) and Common Redshank (1525 pairs, 7.4%). The whole population of waders and seabirds increased with an annual rate, estimated with the TRIM software, of +0.8%, with a greater increase (+4.3%) if the Yellow-legged Gull was not included. Twelve species were stable or increasing; only the yellow-legged gull (-1%) and the common redshank (-2.4%) were decreasing. The populations of several species exceed 10% of those estimated for the whole of Italy; those of the Eurasian Oystercatcher, Common Redshank and Sandwich Tern are among the most important in the whole Mediterranean. On average, about 8860 pairs (43%) nest in the Venice lagoon, 6,400 pairs (31%) in the Po Delta, 5100 pairs (25%) in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia lagoons. Among nesting habitats, semi-natural (such as the fish farms) and man-made sites (dredge islands) make each year about 70% of the nesting pairs. Saltmarsh islets host large numbers of Common Redshank and Sandwich Tern, while along the beach zone the only abundant species are the Yellow-legged Gull and the Eurasian Oystercatcher. The major conservation threats observed in the study area were the erosion of littoral islands, the uncontrolled occurrence of sunbathers along the beaches, the vegetation overgrowth at dredge islands, the increasing frequency of saltmarsh submersion by high tides, the strong fluctuations of water levels inside the fish farms.] [Article in Italian]

The regularization of the wintering status of the Jack Snipe (Lymnocryptes minimus) in NW Italy has been confirmed for the first time within the heathland of the “Baraggia di Candelo Natural Reserve” (Piedmont, Biella). Regular monitoring from winter 2009/2010 to winter 2015/2016 allowed to describe the phenology and the abundance of the species in the area comparing it with that of an ally species, the Common Snipe (Gallinago gallinago). A maximum count of 6 birds during winter and at least 13 individuals during the spring migration were recorded. The species was more abundant during the second 10-day period of November and the first 10-day period of March. Jack Snipe outnumber the Common Snipe throughout the period they were censused.

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Eurasian Dotterel Eudromias morinellus is a summer visitor to northern Europe, but occurs more patchily farther south, with Europe accounting for less than half of its global breeding range. It has an extremely large range with an European breeding population relatively small (