The Swiss Breeding Bird Atlas 2013–2016: preliminary results after two seasons

The Swiss Breeding Bird Atlas 2013–2016 is already revealing some interesting first results. The online portal www.ornitho.ch plays a key role. It serves as an online-atlas and allows the collaborators to produce up-to-date distribution maps and to check for each atlas square (10 × 10 km), which species are already confirmed, still to confirm or newly recorded. After two seasons, only a very limited number of atlas squares are not yet surveyed satisfyingly, mainly in the Alps and the Jura. Distribution trends are emerging for several species, thanks to comparisons with the former atlas periods 1972–1976 and 1993–1996. With simplified territory mapping in 2319 1 × 1 km squares (5.4 % of the area of the entire atlas perimeter), preliminary abundance maps based on 790 1 × 1 km squares mapped in 2013 were calculated. First results of these abundance maps are illustrating changes in densities since the 1993–1996 atlas.