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MUTE SWAN
Cygnus olor
Mute Swan © Mike Weston
 

• Population
  changes

• Productivity
  trends

• Additional
  information
Conservation listings
Europe: no SPEC category (concentrated in Europe, conservation status favourable)
UK: amber (>20% of European breeding population)
Long-term trend
UK, England: rapid increase
UK population size
28,000–30,000 adults in 1990 (Delany et al. 1992: APEP06); 23,900–25,600 pairs in 2000 (updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04)
Status summary
Mute Swan populations have increased progressively on both WBS and CBC plots since the mid 1980s, perhaps reflecting warmer winter weather and the replacement of anglers' lead weights, which had earlier caused many casualties, with non-toxic alternatives (Gibbons et al. 1993). WBS plots, likely to be a preferred habitat for breeding swans, show a more moderate rate of increase than CBC/BBS. Winter trends as measured by WeBS have shown a parallel upturn (Collier et al. 2005). The reductions in breeding performance, although statistically significant, may be to some extent artefacts of the relatively small and perhaps unrepresentative annual samples in the 1990s. The recent change of conservation listing from green to amber is unconnected with its UK trend.
 

Population changes
CBC/BBS UK graph
 
BBS acknowledgement
 
CBC/BBS England graph
WBS UK graph
BBS UK graph
BBS England graph
 

Productivity trends
 
Clutch size graph
Brood size graph
Egg nest failure graph
Chick nest failure graph
Laying date graph

 

 

Insufficient data on CES
available for this species
 

Additional information
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BirdWeb logo, click to go to BirdWeb

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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