Populations of Short-eared Owls are declining across many parts of their range, including here in Britain, where their breeding range contracted between 1990 and 2010. The relationships between a species’ breeding distribution and population trends with environmental variables can provide valuable information to conservation planners. By understanding these relationships it is possible to use Habitat Suitability Models to identify areas of habitat that are suitable for a species, which in turn can be useful when designating protected areas or nature reserves, or when highlighting areas where new planning developments would have an adverse effect.

Species vary widely in their ecological and functional traits. Ecosystems containing a wide variety of different traits usually function better and provide more ecosystem services to humans than more homogeneous ecosystems. However, the choice of traits selected to represent diversity within a community can affect our ability to understand ecosystem processes.

Work in 2015 identified Curlew as the UK's most pressing avian conservation priority. New research reviews progress since that time, both in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and concludes that there has been little change in this species' precarious status.

By studying data from over 15,000 ringed Curlew, researchers have determined that conservation efforts for this declining species should focus on increasing breeding success.

GPS tracking of Lesser Black-backed Gulls wintering in southern Spain reveals how birds’ movements change through the rice harvest cycle, and shows the potential for contamination of arable land by gulls moving between rice paddies and landfill sites.

New research from BTO has investigated the effect of artificial light at night on birds, indicating that nocturnal migrants are attracted to more brightly lit areas. Migratory birds face many challenges during their annual movements between breeding and wintering areas. New research from BTO has investigated whether artificial light at night (ALAN) could disrupt movement patterns of migrant species, thereby adding to the pressures they face throughout their lifecycle. Migrating at night is a common migratory strategy. For example, 80% of UK summer migrants move after dark, and 40–150 million birds are estimated to cross the North Sea at night each autumn. Previous studies have shown that nocturnal migrants can be affected by ALAN, which can make them disoriented and cause them to collide with structures such as lighthouses, oil platforms and tall buildings. This problem is particularly associated with skyscrapers in North America, where mass mortality events occur each year. While UK and other European cities tend to have fewer tall buildings, it is important to establish the possible impacts of ALAN on migrant birds on both sides of the Atlantic. This study used passive acoustic monitoring devices deployed in the gardens of local birdwatchers to record the calls of nocturnally migrating thrushes (Redwing, Blackbird and Song Thrush). The selected birdwatchers’ gardens spanned a gradient of nocturnal illumination in Cambridgeshire - from the brightly lit city of Cambridge to the darker surrounding villages and countryside - and recordings were made during peak thrush migration, between late September and mid-November in 2019. The audio recordings were analysed using artificial neural networks, which had been trained to identify calls of the target species and differentiate them from other sources of nighttime noise. The results showed that thrush call rates were up to five times higher over the brightest urban areas than in the darkest villages, suggesting a strong effect of ALAN on these migratory species. Although evidence from other studies, such as those involving radar, indicates that this result can be explained by birds being attracted to brightly lit areas, it is also possible that individual birds call more often than normal in such environments if they are disorientated. This work highlights the need to better understand the effect of ALAN on birds and other wildlife, and also the potential for passive acoustic monitoring in helping to answer ecological questions. Read more about this work in a BOU blog: Are nocturnal migrants attracted to cities?