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BTO Blueline
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BTO Blueline
HOBBY
Falco subbuteo

Hobby © John Marchant
 

• 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: increase
UK population size
2,200 pairs in 2000 (Clements 2001: BiE04, APEP06)
Status summary
This species used to be too rare and unobtrusive to be monitored but, following population increase, BBS is now able to produce a trend. Many BBS sightings must, however, refer to migrants, first-summer non-breeders, or to breeding birds from distant nests. To establish whether nesting occurs in a locality, dedicated observers and specialised field methods are required, as described by Hardey et al. (2009). The Rare Breeding Birds Panel collects annual data on nesting pairs, which under-represent the true population to unknown degrees, but adequately establish the long-term upward trend (Holling & RBBP 2010b). The Hobby's distribution has spread markedly northwards in England since the 1970s (Gibbons et al. 1993), perhaps linked to increases in its dragonfly prey supplies (Prince & Clarke 1993) and to a decreasing dependency on its traditional heathland habitat, but the reasons underlying the increase are still only speculative (Clements 2001). A success rate of more than 90% was recorded for nests in Derbyshire during 1992–2001, with successful nests fledging a mean of 2.44 young (Messenger & Roome 2007). The small annual samples of nest record cards indicate no long-term change in either brood size or nest success.
BBS UK graph

1998-2008: 27% (confidence interval -4% to 56%)

Population changes in detail
 
Demographic trends
 
Additional information
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This report should be cited as: Baillie, S.R., Marchant, J.H., Leech, D.I., Renwick, A.R., Joys, A.C., Noble, D.G., Barimore, C., Conway, G.J., Downie, I.S., Risely, K. & Robinson, R.A. (2010). Breeding Birds in the Wider Countryside: their conservation status 2010. BTO Research Report No. 565. BTO, Thetford. (http://www.bto.org/birdtrends)

Pages maintained by Iain Downie, Mandy T Andrews and Laura Smith: Last updated 08.10.2010