<p>The life cycle of shorebirds is closely tied to wetland habitats. To understand the ecology of this important component of wetland ecosystem, particularly at breeding sites, accurately determining nest fate (whether nests successfully hatch or fail) is essential. Current methods for determining nest fate are either costly or may yield inaccurate results in certain situations. In our research, we aimed to develop a supplementary method to complement existing approaches. From 2021 to 2025, we used the presence of neoptile feather sheaths in the nest lining as an additional indicator of nest success. These feather sheaths remain in the nest after the chicks have dried. The tetrachoric correlation coefficient indicated a direct and very strong association between the presence of feather sheaths and nest fate. This approach reduced the percentage of nests with an unknown fate from 0 to 27% (observed in 2011–2020) to 0–5% during the period from 2021 to 2025. Feather sheath evidence can be incorporated into future studies to assess nest fate of shorebirds and improve the precision of reproductive success estimates.</p>