The Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas project has been undertaken by a large international team co-ordinated by the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING). It was only possible thanks to a much larger group of Ringing Schemes and researchers who supplied the data on which the project is based. The work was undertaken on behalf of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) and funded by the Government of Italy. The wide range of contributions to the project and our preferred citations are detailed below.

Funding and contracts

We are extremely grateful for the very generous support of the Government of Italy, who funded the project through a pledge of 1M Euros to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), granted in 2017 by the Ministry of the Ecological Transition (formerly Ministry of the Environment, Land and Sea). In recognition of this important support Italy was recognized as a Champion Plus under the CMS Migratory Species Champion Programme.

CMS co-ordinated the project funding and provided valuable input and advice on conservation related aspects of the work. We particularly thank Marco Barbieri and Laura Cerasi for their input.

Overall project funding was co-ordinated through a contract between the Convention on Migratory Species and the Institute of Avian Research (Wilhelmshaven), acting on behalf of the EURING.

Host organizations

Individual components of the work were undertaken by specific organizations as follows:

  • Data management, visualisations, recovery analysis and website development: BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), Thetford, UK.
  • Tracking data provision: Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Centre for Animal Marking “Vogelwarte Radolfzell”, Radolfzell, Germany
  • Species accounts: Aranzadi Science Society, San Sebastian, Spain; Centre d'Écologie et des Sciences de la Conservation, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris, France; Institute of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia, Bulgaria; Centre for Avian Migration, Netherlands Institute of Ecology, Wageningen, Netherlands.
  • Historical changes in migration patterns: Copenhagen Bird Ringing Centre, Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
  • Intentional killing of birds by man: ISPRA (Istituto Superiore per la Protezione e la Ricerca Ambientale), Bologna, Italy
  • Migration seasons of hunted species: Institute of Avian Research, Wilhelmshaven, Germany
  • Migratory connectivity: Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

Coordination and project management

Stephen Baillie, Franz Bairlein, Fernando Spina, Wolfgang Fiedler, Kasper Thorup

Contact

Stephen Baillie stephen.baillie@bto.org
Wolfgang Fiedler fiedler@ab.mpg.de

For individual research modules also see contact details provided with specific reports.

Atlas steering committee

Stephen Baillie (chair, UK), Wolfgang Fiedler (secretary, Germany), Juan Arizaga (Spain), Franz Bairlein (Germany), Davor Cikovic (Croatia, to October 2021), Henk van der Jeugd (Netherlands), Dorian Moss (EURING databank manager, UK), Fernando Spina (Italy), Kasper Thorup (Denmark), Didier Vangeluwe (Belgium).

Project team

Online Migration Atlas and website

  • Ringing data supply and management: Samantha Franks, Dorian Moss, Justin Walker
  • Tracking data supply and management: Wolfgang Fiedler, Sarah Davidson, Justin Walker
  • Data analysis and visualisations: Samantha Franks, Justin Walker
  • Web development: Mark Hammond, Daniel Higgins, William Skellorn
  • Species account authors: Juan Arizaga, Olatz Azipura, Frederic Jiguet, Boris Nikolov, Henk van der Jeugd, Henk Levering
  • Editors: Jacquie Clark, Ian Woodward
  • Project design, coordination and management: Stephen Baillie and Samantha Franks

Research Modules

  • Historical changes in migration patterns: Kasper Thorup and Tom Romdal.
  • Intentional killing of birds by man, with particular reference to illegal killing: Caterina Funghi and Fernando Spina
  • Analysis of the current migration seasons of hunted species as of Key Concepts of Article 7(4) of Directive 79/409/EEC: Franz Bairlein, Frank Mattig and Roberto Ambrosini
  • Migratory connectivity within the European-African migration system: Niccolò Fattorini and Roberto Ambrosini.

Recommended Citations

Online maps and species accounts

Franks, S., Fiedler, W., Arizaga, J., Jiguet, F., Nikolov, B., van der Jeugd, H., Ambrosini, R., Aizpurua, O., Bairlein, F., Clark, J., Fattorini, N., Hammond, M., Higgins, D., Levering, H., Skellorn, W., Spina, F., Thorup, K., Walker, J., Woodward, I. and Baillie, S.R.1. (2022). Online Atlas of the movements of Eurasian-African bird populations.  EURING/CMS.

   1Principal investigator

Research modules

Thorup1, K. and Romdal, T. (2022). Historical changes in Migration Patterns. Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas research module report. EURING/CMS.

Funghi, C. and Spina1, F. (2022). Killing of birds man, with particular reference to illegal killing IKB. Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas research module report. EURING/CMS.

Bairlein1, F., Mattig, F., and Ambrosini, R. (2022). Analysis of the current migration seasons of hunted species as of Key Concepts of Article 7(4) of Directive 79/409/EEC. Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas research module report. EURING/CMS.

Ambrosini1, R. and Fattorini, N. (2022) Migratory connectivity within the European African Migration system. Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas research module report. EURING/CMS.

  1Principal investigator

Overall project

Spina, F.1, Baillie, S.R.1, Bairlein, F.1, Fiedler, W. and Thorup, K. (Eds). (2022). Eurasian African Bird Migration Atlas. EURING/CMS.

   1Joint lead editors

Executive Summary

1Spina F.1, Baillie, S.R.1, Bairlein, F.1, Ambrosini, R., Fattorini, N., Fiedler, W., Franks, S., Funghi, C. and Thorup, K. (2022). Eurasian-African Bird Migration Atlas - Executive Summary. EURING/CMS.

   1Joint first authors

Photographers

Juan Arizaga, Dawn Balmer, Andrew Bennett, Tom Cadwallender, Neil Calbrade, Anne Cotton, Jacob Davies, Sergey Dereliev, Hans Joachim Fünfstück, David Hodkinson, Christian Hoefs, Oliver Käseberg, Callum Macgregor, Michele Mendi, Matthias Putze, Rob Robinson, Jürgen Ruddek, Thomas Sacher, Helen Smith, Vincent van der Spek, Aron Tanti, Adin Vella, Steve Zammit Lupi, Gunther Zieger

Ringing Schemes

This atlas would simply not have been possibly without the efforts of the almost 50 Ringing Schemes operating throughout Europe who make up the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING) and who combine their ring recovery data through the EURING databank. This work is in turn dependent of the efforts of many thousands of mainly volunteer bird ringers, ringing groups, bird observatories and professional researchers who have contributed such data over more than 100 years. We also thank the staff of these schemes, past and present, who have been responsible for co-ordination and data management, together with Chris du Feu and Dorian Moss for their work as volunteer managers of the EURING databank.

Contributing schemes are listed below, along with links to their individual Migration Atlas acknowledgement pages.