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BTO Blueline
HOUSE MARTIN
Delichon urbicum
House Martin © Derek Belsey
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe: SPEC category 3 (declining)
UK: amber (25–50% population decline)
Long-term trend
UK: probable decline
UK population size
273,000–535,000 pairs in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC trend: BiE04, APEP06)
Status summary
The House Martin's loosely colonial habits and strong association with human settlements mean that it is extraordinarily difficult to monitor. Anecdotal evidence of decline is often unreliable, because demise of a colony may be balanced by single nests or small groups becoming established elsewhere. For these reasons, study areas should be large, covered thoroughly, and ideally randomly selected. The available long-term data suggest a rapid decline, although BBS shows significant increase in recent years. The species has recently been moved from the green to the amber list, because of moderate decline in the CBC trend for 1974–99, and is newly listed as of European concern following declines elsewhere in Europe (BirdLife International 2004). The mean change across all European countries during the 1990s was a significant decline (Sanderson et al. 2006).
 

Population changes
CBC all habitats graph
 
Table of population changes for House Martin

Source Period
(yrs)		 Years Plots
(n)		 Change
(%)		 Lower
limit		 Upper
limit		 Alert Comment
CBC/BBS England 38 1967-2005 199 -53 -86 72   Small CBC sample
  25 1980-2005 292 -57 -86 97   Small CBC sample
  10 1995-2005 659 7 -4 20    
  5 2000-2005 710 11 3 19    
BBS UK 10 1995-2005 824 18 7 28    
  5 2000-2005 908 3 -5 10    
BBS England 10 1995-2005 649 8 -1 18    
  5 2000-2005 707 10 3 18    
BBS Scotland 10 1995-2005 50 81 25 128    
  5 2000-2005 55 -29 -48 -6 >25  
BBS Wales 10 1995-2005 83 35 -9 92    
  5 2000-2005 94 -3 -30 27    
BBS N.Ireland 10 1995-2005 34 79 16 156    
  5 2000-2005 45 13 -9 43    

BBS acknowledgement
 
BBS UK graph
BBS England graph
BBS Scotland graph
BBS Wales graph
 

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