The aims of this report

The BirdTrends report is used by conservation practitioners as a ready reference to changes in status among breeding birds in the UK. Here on the BTO website, it is available to a much wider audience including BTO supporters, who may have contributed data, and the general birdwatching public.

We hope that it also provides a useful resource for schools, colleges and universities, the media, ecological consultants, Wildlife Trusts, decision-makers, local government, and the more general world of industry and commerce. In summary, its aims are:

  1. To provide warning alerts to JNCC and country agencies and to other conservation bodies about worrying declines in population size or reproductive success, with special reference to species on the UK red and amber lists of Birds of Conservation Concern
  2. To provide to as wide a readership as possible, in conjunction with BirdFacts, a species-by-species overview of the trends in breeding population, reproductive performance and survival rate for birds covered by BTO monitoring schemes since the 1960s, at the UK and UK-country scales. Where species are mentioned within the BirdTrends pages, they now provide a direct link to the relevant BirdFacts page for that species.
 

This report should be cited as: Massimino, D., Woodward, I.D., Hammond, M.J., Barber, L., Barimore, C., Harris, S.J., Leech, D.I., Noble, D.G., Walker, R.H., Baillie, S.R. & Robinson, R.A. (2020) BirdTrends 2020: trends in numbers, breeding success and survival for UK breeding birds. BTO Research Report 732. BTO, Thetford. www.bto.org/birdtrends