BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Redshank

REDSHANK
Tringa totanus

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: SPEC category 2 (declining)
UK: amber (>50% population decline but data possibly unrepresentative, >20% of East Atlantic Flyway population in winter)

Long-term trend

UK: moderate decline

UK population size

38,800 (31,400–44,400) pairs in 1985–99 (O'Brien 2005: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

UK population decline has recently been added to the criteria by which Redshank qualifies for amber listing. Considerable range contraction had occurred from many areas of the UK by 1988–91, probably as a result of the drainage of farmland (Gibbons et al. 1993). WBS results show a decline along waterways that apparently accelerated during the 1990s. BBS shows a shallow increase overall, but this assessment rests entirely upon the upturn recorded in 2004: the earlier UK trend had been a decrease. Surveys in England and Wales revealed a decrease of 29% in breeding birds in wet meadows between 1982 and 2002 (Wilson et al. 2005). The substantial section of the British population that nests on saltmarshes decreased by 23% between 1985 and 1996 (Brindley et al. 1998). Wintering populations (augmented by many Icelandic and some other northern European breeders) have been stable since the mid 1980s (Banks et al. 2006). The failure rate of nests at the egg stage has fallen steeply since the 1960s.

Population changes

Productivity trends

Insufficient data on brood size
available for this species

Insufficient data on nestling failure
available for this species

Insufficient data on laying date
available for this species

Insufficient data on CES
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