BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Coal Tit

COAL TIT
Parus ater

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: Green

Long-term trend

England: probable increase

Distribution maps

Maps and statistics from British and Irish
atlases can be viewed here.

Status summary

Coal Tit abundance has been rather stable since the mid 1970s, following an earlier rapid increase. The ratios of Coal Tit to Blue and Great Tits caught for ringing have both shown a sustained increase since 1960 (Perrins 2003) although, in these figures, population change may be confounded to some degree with changes in behaviour among birds and bird ringers. Confidence intervals are wide, but BBS shows large changes in population sizes that have varied geographically across the UK. This pattern suggests that Coal Tit abundance in the UK may be controlled by a complex range of factors.

Table of population changes for Coal Tit

Source Period
(yrs) Years Plots
(n) Change
(%) Lower
limit Upper
limit Alert Comment

CBC/BBS England 35 1967-2002 167 52 -14 181

25 1977-2002 204 -7 -33 26

10 1992-2002 364 2 -12 16

5 1997-2002 455 10 -1 21

BBS UK 9 1994-2003 559 29 19 40

BBS England 9 1994-2003 360 9 -2 22

BBS Scotland 9 1994-2003 96 42 17 73

BBS Wales 9 1994-2003 60 -27 -45 -4 (>25)

BBS N.Ireland 9 1994-2003 42 128 32 296

Productivity information is not currently available for this species


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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., Beaven, L.P., Coombes, R.H., Downie, I.S., Freeman, S.N., Joys, A.C., Leech, D.I., Raven, M.J., Robinson, R.A. and Thewlis, R.M. (2005) Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2004. BTO Research Report No. 385. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends) Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 18 January, 2006