LIFE Integrated Project
Welcome to the website of the LIFE IP GrassBirdHabitats project, an EU-funded initiative dedicated to protecting meadow birds and their habitats. Our goal is to create and connect optimal breeding and non-breeding areas along the East Atlantic Flyway.
The project focuses on habitat conservation and restoration in Lower Saxony (Germany) and Fryslân (the Netherlands) while also developing a conservation plan for meadow birds in the Atlantic region of Europe and in West Africa.
The project will run for ten years. It started in November 2020 and will be concluded by the end of October 2030.
24.09.2025
Field trip to the Wümme lowlands
28.05.2025
What do meadow bird chicks eat?
What we do
To improve the conservation status of meadow birds along the East Atlantic Flyway, a team of more than 40 people is carrying out various measures. Our common goal is to increase the birds' reproduction rates in the Netherlands and Germany and to improve their return rates from their wintering grounds in West Africa.
Our focus species
Transmitter birds
In six years of challenging field work, we have equipped more than 380 adult and juvenile Black-tailed Godwits with GPS transmitters, and collected more than 256,000 locations. We use lightweight transmitters with lots of different sensors to gain detailed movement and behavioural data from the birds.
With this information, we want to improve conservation measures for Black-tailed Godwits and other meadow birds along the East Atlantic Flyway.
The project in numbers
353
mil.
out of
353 mil.
353
mil.
complementary funding acquired
291.000
ha
291.000
ha
total project area
100
%
100
%
of all European Black-tailed Godwits breed in Germany and the Netherlands
150
birds
150
birds
birds
tagged with GPS transmitters
Where we work
Our project areas comprise the core breeding areas of meadow birds in the north-western European Plain (in Lower Saxony and Fryslân) and their core wintering sites (in West Africa) along the East Atlantic Flyway.
