BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Whinchat

WHINCHAT
Saxicola rubetra

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (concentrated in Europe, conservation status favourable)
UK: green

Long-term trend

UK: decline

UK population size

14,000–28,000 pairs in 1990 (1988–91 Atlas: APEP06); 11,000–22,100 pairs in 2000 (updated using BBS trend: BiE04)

Status summary

Whinchats were not monitored until the BBS began in 1994. By then, however, Gibbons et al. (1993) had identified a major range contraction, mainly from lowland England, that was probably at least partly due to the loss of marginal farmland habitats (Marchant et al. 1990). Further extinctions have occurred since then among remaining pockets of lowland breeders. BBS data suggest that some population decline took place during the 1990s, provisionally raising a BTO alert. Nest record samples are small, but indicate a substantial rise in nest losses at the egg stage. Numbers have fallen widely in Europe since 1980 (PECBM 2006).

Population changes

Productivity trends

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 7 November, 2008