Wider Countryside Report Header
BTO Blueline
Main WCR menu image Site navigation menu item Results overview menu item Other info menu item BTO website menu item
BTO Blueline
STONECHAT
Saxicola torquatus
 Stonechat © G H Higginbotham
 

• 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: uncertain, possible decline
UK population size
9,000–23,000 pairs in 1990 (1988–91 Atlas: APEP06); 19,300–49,400 pairs in 2000 (updated using BBS trend: BiE04)
Status summary
Trends were poorly quantified before the start of the BBS, but a long-term decline is suspected: severe winter weather, and loss and fragmentation of suitable breeding habitat in many inland regions, are believed to have reduced the population from the 1940s onward (Marchant et al. 1990). Breeding atlas data showed a substantial contraction in the Stonechat's range between the early 1970s and late 1980s (Gibbons et al. 1993). Nest failure rates have fallen markedly over the long term, and the numbers of fledglings per breeding attempt have risen steeply. Against this background, the current, strongly increasing BBS trend represents substantial and possibly even complete recovery. Following similar increases widely across Europe, the species is now provisionally categorised as 'secure' (BirdLife International 2004) and consequently the species has recently been moved from the amber to the green list in the UK (Eaton et al. 2009).
 
BBS UK graph

1995-2007: 209% (confidence interval 144% to 275%)

 
Population changes in detail
 

 Demographic trends
Fledglings per breeding attempt graph
Laying date graph
 
 
More on demographic trends
 
Additional information
BTO blue divider
 

BTO Home | JNCC Home
 © British Trust for Ornithology. Charity No 216652 (England and Wales).Charity No SC039193 (Scotland)
Company Limited by Guarantee No 357284 (England and Wales).
Registered Office: The Nunnery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU, UK.
Terms and Conditions | Privacy Statement          Email:


This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Leech, D.I., Joys, A.C., Noble, D.G., Barimore, C., Downie, I.S., Grantham, M.J., Risely, K. & Robinson, R.A. (2010). Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2009.
BTO Research Report No. 541. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends)

Pages maintained by Iain Downie, Mandy T Andrews and Laura Smith: Last updated 18.01.2010