BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: House Martin

HOUSE MARTIN
Delichon urbicum

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: SPEC category 3 (declining)
UK: amber (25–50% population decline)

Long-term trend

UK: uncertain

Population size

273,000–535,000 pairs in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC trend: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

The House Martin's loosely colonial habits and strong association with human settlements mean that it is extraordinarily difficult to monitor. Anecdotal evidence of decline is often unreliable, because demise of a 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 long-term data suggest a rapid decline, although BBS shows significant increase in recent years. The species has recently been moved from the green to the amber list, because of moderate decline in the CBC trend for 1974–99, and is newly listed as of European concern following declines elsewhere in Europe (BirdLife International 2004).

Population changes

Productivity trends

Productivity information is not currently 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., 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. (2006) Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2005. BTO Research Report No. 435. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends) Pages maintained by Susan Waghorn and Iain Downie: Last updated 28 April, 2006