Kızılırmak Delta hosted 160K birds this winter

IN COLLABORATION with the Ornithology Research Center of Ondokuz Mayıs University (OMÜ) and the 11th Regional Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, approximately 160,000 waterbirds were detected in the Kızılırmak Delta in northern Türkiye this winter, according to a report yesterday.

Associate professor Kiraz Erciyas Yavuz, a staff member of the OMÜ Ornithology Research Center, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that the midwinter waterbird count is conducted simultaneously worldwide in January, February and March every year.

Yavuz, who stated that these counts are carried out by the Wetlands Protection and Monitoring Unit located in the Netherlands, noted that the count is performed when migration movements have stopped.

She explained that the count aims to determine the distribution of the bird population.

“In other words, we want to determine where each species is located. As part of the global count organization, we are conducting the count in Türkiye under the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks affiliated with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. As the OMÜ Ornithology Research Center, we are responsible for the wetlands in the Black Sea Region,” Yavuz said.

Pointing out that the Kızılırmak Delta is one of the 37 wetlands in the Black Sea Region, she also underscored high species diversity and waterbird count in the area.

“This year, we detected that approximately 160,000 waterbirds wintered in the Kızılırmak Delta,” she said.

“We do not count other migratory birds in this period. We count them in different projects,” she added.

“This number includes ducks, coots, shorebirds, herons and egrets. We have a set point, and we observe and determine the waterbird population in the area by conducting observations from the same point every year,” noted Yavuz.

Furthermore, she listed the most common species they detected this year as the green-headed duck, coot and common snipe.

“We detected 57 species of waterbirds wintering in the Kızılırmak Delta,” she informed.

She also stated that approximately 2 million waterbirds are detected every year in about 160 wetlands throughout the country.

Indicating that the number of birds spending winter in the Kızılırmak Delta varies between 70,000 and 200,000 from year to year, Yavuz said, “The movement of waterbirds wintering in Türkiye depends on how the weather is in the north.”

“If the weather is harsh in the north, the birds need to move south. In that case, we see more species and a higher number of birds, but in milder years, the birds do not prefer long migrations. Therefore, we observe fewer birds some years.”

Emphasizing that the Kızılırmak Delta is among the wetlands with the highest number of species detected in the midwinter waterbird counts in Türkiye, she noted that 7% of the species and population seen within the country are detected in the Kızılırmak Delta.

“Although Eğirdir and Beyşehir lakes are much larger and waterbirds are seen more in those areas when we compare the size of the Kızılırmak Delta with these lakes, we see that the delta hosts a significant number of waterbirds,” she concluded.