BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER
Dendrocopos minor

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

Europe: no SPEC category (favourable conservation status in Europe, not concentrated in Europe)
UK: red (>50% population decline)

Long-term trend

UK: rapid decline

UK population size

1,400–2,900 pairs in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC trend: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker has declined significantly and very rapidly since around 1980, following a shallower increase, and has also contracted in range (Gibbons et al. 1993). It easily qualifies for red listing, but has become so rare and localised in recent years that BBS observers have been unable to collect enough data for annual monitoring. Competition with and predation by Great Spotted Woodpeckers, and reductions in small-diameter dead wood suitable for foraging, are the most likely causes of decline, while the species' large home ranges suggest that landscape-scale changes in woodland (loss of mature broadleaved woodland, losses of non-woodland trees such as elms, and woodland fragmentation) may also be important (Fuller et al. 2005).

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