Grassland Birds
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Increase diversity and abundance in restored grasslands
Data collection in progress
Iron Curtain to Green Belt
Bulgaria
Problem: Across the landscape, natural and semi-natural grasslands are being ploughed and converted to arable land, often driven by agricultural subsidies and resulting in unsustainable agricultural practices. Important and rare plant and animal communities associated with these grasslands, such as souslik, are therefore under threat.
Action: Areas of arable land and/or degraded pasture will be purchased, protected and restored by the project. Unsustainable arable agricultural practices will be ended and sustainable levels of grazing will be implemented in these areas.
Indicator: The community composition and abundance of birds will be monitored as indicators of the recovery of the grassland habitats in this landscape. Data from this indicator will be combined with the Grassland Plants and Grasshoppers indicators to provide a multispecies biodiversity index of changes in community.
A Eurasian hoopoe (Upupa epops). Photo: Svetoslav Spasov
A European roller (Coracias garrulus). Photo: Svetoslav Spasov
Methods
Because the recovery of grassland ecosystems will be slower than the timeframe of the ELSP project, it will be difficult to detect changes in the bird community associated with grassland restoration during this period. The project will therefore collect data on bird abundance and diversity using the same methodology in three habitat types: arable fields, open grasslands, and grasslands with shrubs and trees. Some areas in each of these habitats will be restored by the project (treatment sites) and others will be where no restoration treatment occurs (control sites). Grassland Bird data will be collected at the same sites as Grassland Plants and Grasshoppers indicator data.
Bird surveys will be carried out before and after grassland restoration will take place, twice per year between March and July. The first survey will be carried out in 2024, and the follow-up survey is planned for 2027. Point counts will be used to collect data on all birds seen or heard in a five-minute interval. Twenty sampling points, with radius 150 m, will be surveyed in each habitat type. The minimum distance between sampling points will be 100 m.
Comparing the bird communities across each of these three habitat types will allow the project to demonstrate the biodiversity change that can be expected after grassland restoration, and track the restoration sites’ progress as they hopefully approach the target condition.
A crested lark (Galerida cristata). Photo: Svetoslav Spasov
A northern wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe). Photo: Svetoslav Spasov
Results
This page will be updated once the project the baseline data has been collected and analysed.
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