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BTO Blueline
YELLOWHAMMER
Emberiza citrinella
Yellowhammer © Tommy Holden
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe: no SPEC category (concentrated in Europe, conservation status favourable)
UK: red (>50% population decline)
UK Biodiversity Action Plan: in preparation
Long-term trend
UK, England: rapid decline
UK population size
792,000 territories in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04, APEP06)
Status summary
Yellowhammer abundance began to decline on farmland in the mid 1980s and, except in Scotland, the decline has continued ever since. The species, listed as green in 1996, now qualifies for the red list. While there is some evidence that survival rates have decreased during the period of decline, Yellowhammer breeding performance has tended to improve (Siriwardena et al. 1998b, 2000b). However, recent declines in brood size and nest success are potentially of concern. Overall nest failure rates are relatively high, probably because later nests, which tend to be more successful (Kyrkos 1997), are under-represented in the NRS data set, but this is unlikely to affect overall trends. Reductions in winter seed food availability as a result of agricultural intensification (for example, the loss of winter stubbles and a reduction in weed densities) are widely believed to have contributed to the population decline. The local availability of winter setaside is a good predictor of sites chosen for breeding territories the next year (Whittingham et al. 2005). Numbers have fallen widely in Europe since 1980 (PECBM 2006).
 

Population changes
CBC/BBS UK graph
 
BBS acknowledgement
 
CBC/BBS England graph
CES adult abundance graph
CES juvenile abundance graph
BBS UK graph
BBS England graph
BBS Scotland graph
BBS Wales graph
 

Productivity trends
 
Clutch size graph
Brood size graph
Egg nest failure graph
Chick nest failure graph
Laying date graph
CES productivity graph
 

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