BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Coal Tit

COAL TIT
Periparus ater

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: green

Long-term trend

England: probable moderate increase

UK population size

653,000 territories in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

While other common tit species have increased, the UK Coal Tit population has been rather stable since the mid 1970s, following earlier rapid increase. The ratios of Coal Tit to Blue and Great Tits caught for ringing have both shown a sustained increase since 1960 (Perrins 2003), however, although in these figures population change may be confounded to some degree with changes in behaviour among birds and bird ringers. Confidence intervals are wide, but BBS shows large changes in population sizes that have varied geographically across the UK. This pattern suggests that Coal Tit abundance in the UK may be controlled by a complex range of factors.

Population changes

Table of population changes for Coal Tit

Source	Period (yrs)	Years	Plots (n)	Change (%)	Lower limit	Upper limit	Alert
CBC/BBS England	38	1967-2005	194	52	-12	182
	25	1980-2005	252	5	-22	42
	10	1995-2005	461	10	-5	29
	5	2000-2005	488	4	-6	15
BBS UK	10	1995-2005	634	8	-2	20
	5	2000-2005	723	6	-3	15
BBS England	10	1995-2005	411	14	-4	40
	5	2000-2005	475	4	-9	17
BBS Scotland	10	1995-2005	102	4	-13	26
	5	2000-2005	102	10	-5	24
BBS Wales	10	1995-2005	66	-27	-46	-2	>25
	5	2000-2005	79	-16	-30	-2
BBS N.Ireland	10	1995-2005	52	66	22	98
	5	2000-2005	64	4	-9	20

Productivity trends

Productivity information is not currently available for this species

Additional information


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This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Crick, H.Q.P., Noble, D.G., Balmer, D.E., Barimore, C., Coombes, R.H., Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. & Thewlis, R.M. (2007) Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2007. BTO Research Report No. 487. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends) Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 3 January, 2008