Estimates of waterbird numbers wintering in Ireland , 2006 / 07 – 2010 / 11

Estimates of total bird numbers help to evaluate the importance of a site for a species within a national and international framework, and also the relative importance of each country for that species which helps to prioritise conservation action and management. Non-breeding waterbirds, which are generally gregarious in nature, have been used to identify the importance of more than 80 wetland sites across Ireland in an international context, and thereby justify their designation as Special Protection Areas under the European Union Birds Directive. Waterbird numbers in Ireland were first monitored at a national scale during the early 1970s, and the first all-Ireland estimates were presented by Hutchinson (1979). A follow-up census during the 1980s resulted in a revision of these estimates (Sheppard 1993) and showed that there had been