From the Black-tailed Godwits of the Marais Poitevin to the Eurasian Curlews of Normandy, France provides two very different landscapes in which FARMBIRD can learn more about grassland waders.
Leading this work is the Office Français de la Biodiversité (OFB), the French Biodiversity Agency.
OFB has extensive experience monitoring grassland birds and studying habitat use, migration, population pressures and conservation management. It also contributes directly to national policy: France's Ministry of Ecology has asked OFB and Tour du Valat to co-write the national management plan for meadow birds.
Within FARMBIRD, OFB will test new monitoring protocols at two French pilot sites.
The first is the Marais Poitevin in the Pays de la Loire, where Black-tailed Godwit, Northern Lapwing and Redshank breed. The second is the Marais de la Taute in Normandy, an important area for Eurasian Curlew, where OFB works with the associated organisation Groupe Ornithologique Normand.
Several technologies will work side by side.
Infrared drones will help locate nests and chicks. Camera traps and field observers will help identify predators and understand their impact. GPS tags attached to breeding waders will provide detailed information about how birds move through and use the meadow landscape.
The human observations are just as important as the technology. By comparing both, OFB and the FARMBIRD partners can assess how reliable and useful the new techniques really are.
The French data will also be shared with partners developing common protocols and AI-based analysis.
Most importantly, OFB wants the methods to be usable by the people managing these landscapes. Results and techniques will therefore be shared with managers, farmers and other local stakeholders and can contribute to future conservation policy.
From a Curlew moving across a Norman meadow to national management plans, OFB connects field monitoring with long-term conservation.
We Fly Together.