Fotografia de José B. Ruiz

It is well known that many seabirds breeding in North and Central Europe move to the Mediterranean for wintering, specially at Spanish Levante coasts. In the Iberian Penninsula the interest to know more about the wintering seabirds and to count them start at the end of the 70´s, much focused on Laridae (gulls) group. In Alicante this inventories start in 2002 and some years ago was extended along Valencia Community coastline.

In 2009 almost fifty volunteer ornithologists have covered 18 sites of the area, counting 9.143 individuals of 23 species considered as seabirds. This task has been coordinated by Luis Aleixos, José Santamaría y Elías Gomis, and promoted from the webpages of Societat Valenciana d’Ornitologia (Valencia Community Association of Ornithologists) and Naturalicante.