The all-Russian count of waterfowl and waterbirds, known as the "Grey Neck" project, will take place on January 18-19, the third weekend of the month. The Russian Bird Conservation Union announced this on its website.
"Waterfowl are increasingly staying to winter in the middle belt of European Russia, the Volga region, southern Siberia, and the Urals. This trend is partly due to supplementary feeding by humans. To understand how important these 'cold winters' are for birds, which species overwinter here, and in what numbers, the Russian Bird Conservation Union conducts an annual mid-winter count of waterfowl and waterbirds," the statement reads.
The union noted that most waterfowl and waterbirds leave our regions in the fall to winter in more southern latitudes – from Western and Southern Europe to Southeast Asia. These birds are driven south not so much by the cold itself, but by the freezing of water bodies, as this deprives them of their feeding grounds. However, the construction of dams on rivers has led to the formation of many kilometer-long ice-free sections of rivers below the dams, which do not freeze even in the harshest winters. Extensive areas of open water also form in places where warm water is discharged from thermal power plants and in large cities. In addition, climate warming is also becoming evident in many regions of the country, experts noted.
These factors have contributed to the fact that waterfowl have increasingly been staying for the winter.
Surveys similar to the upcoming event have been traditionally conducted in Moscow since 1985. Later, Moscow Region, St. Petersburg, Ulyanovsk, Ivanovo, Saratov, Krasnodar, Saransk, Irkutsk, and Perm joined in.
Since 2015, the mid-winter count has become the all-Russian "Grey Neck" project.
The event is included in the all-Russian consolidated calendar plan of events of the Ministry of Education of Russia, aimed at developing environmental education among children and young people in educational institutions, all-Russian and interregional public environmental organizations and associations for 2025.
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