BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Wren

WREN
Troglodytes troglodytes

• Population
changes

• Productivity
trends

• Additional
information

Conservation listings

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

Long-term trend

UK, England: moderate increase

UK population size

8,512,000 territories in 2000 (1988–91 Atlas estimate updated using CBC/BBS trend: BiE04, APEP06)

Status summary

The Wren's current UK population estimate is the highest for any species. Abundance can vary sharply from year to year in this species, however, influenced by mortality rates that may be very high in severe winters and by the species' high breeding potential (Peach et al. 1995b), as is evident in the unsmoothed trends presented here for CES and BBS. Wren numbers in the UK were greatly depleted by the cold winter of 1962/63 (Marchant et al. 1990). Following a rapid recovery up to the mid 1970s, abundance fell again in response to a further series of cold winters only to return to its previous high level. BBS results suggest that increase since 1994 has been confined to Scotland and Northern Ireland. Brood size appears to have shown a small improvement in the long term.

Population changes

BBS N Ireland graph

Productivity trends

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 2 May, 2006