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The list of bird species recorded in Britain The latest list includes all species - 628 as at 14 June 2022 - recorded in a wild, or apparently wild, state in Britain, as recognised by the British Ornithologists' Union (BOU). See the BOU's latest (10th) edition of The Checklist of Birds of Britain.
As of 13 August 2024, there are 641 species of birds on the British List, ... British Birds (a long-established ornithology journal). European birds;
Dec 11, 2023 · Admitted to the British List in June 2021. The BOU maintains the British List, the official list of wild bird record in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales and associated waters). The List is managed by the BOU’s Records Committee (BOURC). Each species on the List is assigned to a species category. Only those species in Categories A, B ...
Spring is in the air and birds are on the move. But some, just like us, start going one way and end up somewhere complet... The Nightjar. The enigma. The legend. These almost mythical birds arrive from Africa every summer to raise their young. Browse our UK bird guide by name. See birds alphabetised by name and family, A-Z in this handy guide.
- Introduction
- Native Breeding Wild Bird Populations in The UK
- Breeding Farmland Bird Populations in The UK
- Breeding Woodland Bird Populations in The UK
- Breeding Water and Wetland Bird Populations in The UK
- Breeding Seabird Populations in The UK
- Wintering Waterbird Populations in The UK
- Upland Bird Populations in The UK
Why monitor bird populations
Bird populations have long been considered to provide a good indication of the broad state of wildlife in the UK. This is because they occupy a wide range of habitats and respond to environmental pressures that also operate on other groups of wildlife. In addition, there are considerable long-term data on trends in bird populations, allowing for comparison between trends in the short term and long term. Because they are a well-studied taxonomic group, drivers of change for birds are better un...
Understanding the bird population indices
Individual bird species population trends, based on carefully designed surveys undertaken largely by volunteer experts, are calculated as a series of annual indices. These relate the population in a given year to a ‘baseline’ – the first year that data are available – which is given a value of 100. Thereafter, the index is expressing the population as a percentage of this ‘baseline’. This annual Defra Accredited Official Statistics Release presents data trends up to 2022 in populations of com...
Assessing trends
Smoothed trends are referred to in the text, which are used to formally assess the statistical significance of change over time. For seabirds, there are currently no smoothed trends. Smoothed trends are used for both long and short-term assessments as they reduce the short-term peaks and troughs resulting from, for example, year-to-year weather and sampling variations as well as good or bad breeding seasons See analytical methods on BTO website (Fewster et al. 2000. Ecology 81: 1970 to 1984)....
Trend description
In 2022, the all-species index in the UK, based on the aggregated population trends of 130 breeding species, was 15% below its 1970 value. The indicator declined between the late 1970s and the late 1980s, driven mostly by relatively steep declines in woodland and farmland birds. The all-species index has since levelled off although the index shows a 6% decrease between 2017 and 2022. Within the index, 24% of the 130 species increased, 46% showed little change and 29% declined since 1970. It w...
Species breakdown
The 130 species of birds included in the index includes all widespread species, with populations of at least 500 breeding pairs, for which there are sufficient data to calculate a trend. Species trends within this index vary widely, from species increasing several-fold (for example, Cetti’s warbler, avocet, blackcap, buzzard, great spotted woodpecker, red kite and collared dove) to those having declined to less than a tenth of 1970 numbers (for example, turtle dove, capercaillie, willow tit,...
Trend description
Farmland refers to the 69% of land in the UK which is devoted to agriculture. Farmland also provides semi-natural habitats such as hedgerows and field margins that provide food and shelter to birds. In 2022 the UK farmland bird index was 60% below its 1970 value. The majority of this decline occurred between the late 1970s and the 1980s largely due to the negative impact of rapid changes in farmland management during this period. The decline has continued at a slower rate in the short-term; s...
Factors affecting farmland bird populations
The large declines in the abundance of many farmland birds have a number of known and potential causes. For a large part, declines have been caused by the changes in farming practices that have taken place since the 1950s and 1960s, such as the loss of mixed farming, a move from spring to autumn sowing of arable crops, change in grassland management (for example, a switch from hay to silage production), increased pesticide and fertiliser use, and the removal of non-cropped features such as he...
Species breakdown
The farmland bird index contains data for 19 species. The long-term decline of the farmland bird indicator in the UK has been driven mainly by the decline of those species that are restricted to, or highly dependent on, farmland habitats (the ‘specialists’). Between 1970 and 2022, the index for farmland specialists declined by 72% while for farmland generalists it declined by 22%.
Trend description
Woodland covers 13% of the UK’s land area, providing trees and other vegetation suitable for nesting, foraging opportunities and cover from predators. In 2022, the UK woodland bird index was 37% below its 1970 value. The greatest decline occurred between the early 1980s and the early 1990s. The index was stable, at around 80% of the 1970 numbers, between 1995 and 2012, since when it has decreased further by 15% between 2016 and 2021 Since 1970, 14% of species increased, 54% showed little chan...
Factors affecting woodland birds
The declines in woodland birds have several known and potential causes, such as a lack of woodland management (including the cessation of traditional practices such as coppicing) and increased deer browsing pressure, both of which result in a reduced diversity of woodland structure and reduced availability of suitable nesting and foraging habitats. Changes in farmland management, such as the removal of hedgerows, adversely impacted many of the species in the indicator which have substantial p...
Species breakdown
The woodland bird index contains data for 37 species. The overall trend masks different underlying trends for specialist species, those which are highly dependent on woodland habitats, and generalist species, which are found in a wide range of habitats, including woodland. In 2022, the woodland specialists index was 55% lower than in 1970, while the index for woodland generalists was 5% lower than in 1970 (Figure 3.3). Over the short term, the woodland specialists have decreased by 19% and th...
Trend description
Water and wetlands include rivers, lakes, ponds, reedbeds, coastal marshes, other wet grasslands, and lowland raised bogs, together totalling 3% of the UK’s area and providing important habitats for birds. Species included in the wetland indicator are those defined as having a positive association with waterways or wetlands, and also include some upland birds and those also associated with farmland, for example reed bunting and yellow wagtail. Produced largely using the population trends from...
Factors affecting water and wetland bird populations
The historical declines in breeding waders resulted from land management changes such as drainage, the intensification of grassland management and the conversion of coastal and floodplain grazing marshes to arable land. Where populations persist in small fragments of high-quality habitat, their nests and young can be vulnerable to predation, which is currently thought to be limiting the recovery of several species of breeding wader. However, a range of species, particularly those associated w...
Species breakdown
The 26 species of bird included in the water and wetland bird index can be split into 4 categories for producing sub-habitat indicators. Although the index for all wetland and waterways species shows a relatively flat trend, this masks underlying and marked differences between sub-habitat indicators (Figure 4.3). When interpreting these trends, it should be borne in mind that each sub-habitat trend is derived from relatively few species’ trends.
Chapter 5 has not been updated due to the collection of the 2020 data for seabirds being affected COVID-19 restrictions. Also, the Seabird Monitoring Programme (SMP) has recently transferred from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO). BTO are planning to publish trends from the SMP later this year...
Trend description
The term waterbird is used to describe all birds that inhabit or depend on water; this chapter is about waterbirds that over-winter in the UK, some of which also breed here. Not all of the wintering waterbirds in this chapter are included in the all breeding birds index, only those which also breed in the UK and for which breeding trends are available. Wintering populations typically originate largely from breeding populations outside the UK and hence they represent completely different popul...
Factors affecting wintering wetland bird populations
Populations of wintering wetland birds are affected by a range of factors including conditions in the high latitude countries where they breed, with breeding productivity increasing for species including black-tailed godwit but decreasing for others such as Greenland white-fronted geese. There is good evidence of a strong climate change impact on the indicator in recent years, with milder winters leading to the wintering ranges of many species, including mallard, pintail, goldeneye, pochard,...
Species breakdown
There are 46 species, races and populations of bird included in the wintering waterbird indicator. These can be split into subcategories of wildfowl (ducks, geese and swans) and waders (sandpipers, plovers and their close relatives) which display slightly different trends. Overall, the wildfowl index has nearly doubled (97% increase) and the wader index has increased by 66% since 1975/1976. However, both peaked in the late 1990s and have declined subsequently; between 2016/2017 and 2021/2022,...
The upland bird statistics are now being published as official statistics rather than experimental statistics because the methodology used to produce them is now fully developed according to current understanding and science but may incorporate future developments. The data used within the methodology is subject to ongoing review and refinement fro...
The BirdFacts database includes an entry for all species on the official British List maintained by the British Ornithologists’ Union. The list below provides an index to the common and widespread species that most birdwatchers can expect to encounter in the UK.
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The British Birds list of Western Palearctic birds sets out the names and taxonomic sequence used in all material published in and by British Birds. In terms of taxonomy and scientific nomenclature, the BB list follows the International Ornithological Union’s IOC World Bird List (v. 13.2). In most cases, English names are the same as the ...
