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BTO Blueline
HOUSE MARTIN
Delichon urbicum
House Martin © Derek Belsey
Conservation listings
Europe: SPEC category 3 (declining)
UK: amber (25-50% population decline)
Long-term trend
England: possible decline
Distribution maps
Maps and statistics from British and Irish
atlases can be viewed here.
Status summary
The House Martin's colonial habits and tendency to nest in human settlements mean that it is extraordinarily difficult to monitor. In some cases, the demise of a well-known colony may be balanced by single nests or small groups becoming established elsewhere. For these reasons, study areas should be large, covered thoroughly, and ideally randomly selected. The available data predominantly suggest decline, although BBS shows shallow increase in recent years, especially in Scotland and Wales. The species has recently been moved from the green to the amber list because of moderate decline in the CBC trend for 1974-99. However, it should be noted that the decline of this species is not statistically significant and therefore no formal alerts are raised (see table below). Following declines in France, Germany, Turkey and elsewhere in Europe during the 1990s, the European status of this species is no longer considered 'secure'.
 
CBC all habitats graph
 
Table of population changes for House Martin
Source Period
(yrs)		 Years Plots
(n)		 Change
(%)		 Lower
limit		 Upper
limit		 Alert Comment
CBC/BBS England 35 1967-2002 151 -58 -86 34    
  25 1977-2002 203 -61 -85 36    
  10 1992-2002 480 -9 -39 27    
  5 1997-2002 638 2 -5 10    
BBS UK 9 1994-2003 736 15 6 26    
BBS England 9 1994-2003 583 3 -6 13    
BBS Scotland 9 1994-2003 43 152 57 304    
BBS Wales 9 1994-2003 77 44 7 93    
BBS acknowledgement
 
BBS UK graph
BBS England graph
BBS Scotland graph
BBS Wales graph
 
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