ABSTRACT. – The census of common water-related species as indicators is strategic for its ecological implication on assessing the status of wetlands. Here, we carried out a study on the abundance of the most common wintering rallids (Eurasian Coot, Fulica atra and Common Moorhen, Gallinula chloropus) in a remnant Mediterranean wetland (central Italy), comparing two largely used sampling methods: point counts and total census method (comparable to a mapping method). We performed a Generalised Additive Model (GAM), which indicated that both sampling methods gave similar results, i.e., point counts allow us to obtain reliable data when compared to a more fine-grained and time-consuming total census method. The use of GAMs to monitor the abundance of wintering rallids considers the sampling dates and the autocorrelated nature of the sampling data. Therefore, we suggest rapid surveys of wintering rallids could be carried out by using point counts.