BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Peregrine Falcon

PEREGRINE FALCON
Falco peregrinus

Peregrine Falcon © Tommy Holden

Conservation listings

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

Long-term trend

UK, England: increase
Northwest Scotland: decline

Distribution maps

Distribution maps for this species are not currently available online (see Atlases species help)

Status summary

The UK population size, distribution and breeding performance have all largely recovered from the detrimental effects of organochlorine pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s. Populations and breeding performance have declined recently, however, in northwest Scotland and the Northern Isles (Crick & Ratcliffe 1995), and nest record information for the UK as a whole shows a significant decline in clutch size, although samples for the first ten years are small. The number of UK breeding pairs has been censused every ten years since 1961 by BTO/JNCC/RSPB/Raptor Study Groups, and has been estimated as follows: 1961, 385 pairs; 1971, 489 pairs; 1981, 728 pairs; 1991, 1283 pairs (Ratcliffe 1993). The National Peregrine Survey 2002 found 1402 breeding pairs, a further 10% increase overall since 1991 but with declines in north and west Scotland, North Wales and Northern Ireland. Similar increases across Europe have resulted in a downgrading of conservation listing from 'SPEC 3 (rare)' to 'secure'.

Annual population changes are not monitored for this species

Table of productivity information for Peregrine Falcon

Variable Period
(yrs) Years Mean
annual
sample Trend Predicted
in first year Predicted
in last year Change Comment

Clutch size 34 1968-2002 15 Linear decline 3.64 eggs 3.09 eggs -0.55 eggs Small sample

Brood size 34 1968-2002 39 None

Daily failure rate (eggs) 34 1968-2002 20 None Small sample

Daily failure rate (chicks) 34 1968-2002 21 None Small sample

Insufficient data on laying date
available for this species

Insufficient data on CES
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