Again, another year counting waterbirds for the International Waterbird Census (IWC), a special year that celebrated 60 years of census worldwide. This year was rather difficult, due to the storms that went through Portugal all January. But, with the help of the really accurate weather models, we did manage to find some windows of opportunity to count not only the Mondego Estuary, but also Cávado and Ave Estuaries. You can see some of the stories of the volunteers in this mini-portal.

These counts are then incorporated at the Portuguese National Census of Wintering Aquatic Birds and at the IWC, run by Wetlands Internacional. It is also a great to way to stay in touch with some of my fellow observers, Tiago Múrias and Luis Pascoal da Silva, both from the University of Porto (CIBIO-BIOPOLIS), that also share my passion for this estuary and these birds.

The south arm mudflats at the Mondego estuary harbour such a great diversity of shorebirds and other aquatic birds. It was fantastic to see so many ospreys in our line of sight!

The Ave estuary at the lovely town of Vila do Conde. A small waterbird community that share the river with so many human activities.