BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER
Dendrocopos minor

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: red (>50% population decline)
UK Biodiversity Action Plan: in preparation

Long-term trend

UK: rapid decline

UK population size

1,400–2,900 pairs in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC trend: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker has declined significantly and very rapidly since around 1980, following a shallower increase; it had already contracted in range between the two atlas periods (Gibbons et al. 1993), and has subsequently disappeared from many more of its former localities. It easily qualifies for red listing, but has become so rare in recent years that BBS observers have been unable to continue the annual monitoring that was possible until 2000 through CBC. Competition with and predation by Great Spotted Woodpeckers, and reductions in small-diameter dead wood suitable for foraging, are the most likely causes of decline, while the species' large home ranges suggest that landscape-scale changes in woodland (loss of mature broadleaved woodland, losses of non-woodland trees such as elms, and woodland fragmentation) may also be important (Fuller et al. 2005). Numbers have fallen widely in Europe since 1980 (PECBM 2006).

Population changes

Table of population changes for Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

Source	Period (yrs)	Years	Plots (n)	Change (%)	Lower limit	Upper limit	Alert	Comment
CBC all habitats	31	1968-1999	17	-60	-81	40		Small sample
	25	1974-1999	18	-73	-86	-31	>50	Small sample
	10	1989-1999	11	-51	-75	-22	>50	Small sample
	5	1994-1999	9	-33	-56	0		Small sample

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