The two main themes of The State of the UK’s Birds report (SUKB) 2015 are farmland birds (illustrated by this year’s cover of a Lapwing) - a group that as a whole continues to decline, and how strong partnerships can help to reverse the fortunes of some of our farmland specialists - such as the Yellowhammer, currently faring well in Scotland; and species such as Tree Sparrow and Lapwing, all of which have shown evidence of positive responses on farms under Environmental Stewardship. Over the last four decades, declines in farmland birds have been shown to be due to a number of factors including the loss of mixed farming; increased use of pesticides; changes in grassland management and changes in crop type and the timing of management. The effects of predation and climate change, and threats to migratory species away from their breeding grounds are also playing a role. Agri-environment schemes provide the primary mechanism for improving conditions for farmland birds so how these are delivered in the future is critical. Other future challenges for farmland birds include emerging diseases and the development and use of new pesticides such as neonicotinoids. The importance of volunteer data Volunteer data continue to provide most of the information used to update the trends reported for the UK, one of the two key examples being the more than 2500 volunteer participants in the Breeding Bird Survey. Providing annual population trends for more than 100 species, the BBS results highlight six species with severe declines just since 1995: Turtle Dove, Willow Tit, Wood Warbler, Grey Partridge, Pied Flycatcher and Whinchat. Four of these species are long-distance migrants and three are woodland specialists. Counts by volunteers at more than 2,200 wetland sites at monthly intervals for the Wetland Bird Survey provide the information to report on wintering population trends in 46 species or races of waterbirds including ducks, geese, swans, waders, grebes, rails and cormorants. After two decades of increase, the wintering waterbird indicator has been declining over the last decade, particularly among species such as Turnstone and Purple Sandpiper, characteristic of the non-estuarine coasts. "Without the dedication of thousands of volunteers, and partnerships between a whole suite of organisations, bird monitoring could not function on the scale illustrated by the latest the 'State of the UK's Birds'. From monitoring comes conservation action, and it is uplifting to read examples of partnership projects working to conserve the UK's birds. The latest SUKB celebrates both volunteer effort and innovative partnerships, something volunteers and partnership organisations should be proud of. Now to continue this great work..." Sarah Harris, Breeding Bird Survey National Organiser. Scarce and rare breeding species SUKB 2015 once again includes a summary of trends in scarce and rare breeding species, drawn mainly from the annual reports of the Rare Breeding Bird Panel and the SCARABBS programme of periodic surveys. A number of these birds are perilously close to extinction in the UK: one species, the Wryneck, may be already, as the last known breeding record was in 2002 and the Golden Oriole has not bred since 2009. Red-backed Shrikes appeared to be going the same way, but successful breeding in Devon and the Highlands in recent years gives us some cause for hope. While Red-backed Shrikes and Wrynecks were once found breeding across large parts of the UK, species such as Purple Sandpipers, Savi’s Warblers, Marsh Warblers, Redwings and Fieldfares have never, to the best of our knowledge, been anything more than rare breeders. The UK lies at the edge of their breeding ranges, and their fortunes here are dependent on how they fare elsewhere in Europe. Apart from input to international conservation policy, the best we can do is to protect the few pairs that do breed.

The consideration of flight heights is a key factor determining how seabirds interact with offshore wind farms. Of particular interest is the need to accurately predict flight heights, in order to feed into predictive Collision Risk Models (CRM). Data within CRM have traditionally relied quite heavily on boat surveys collected by observers, but now routinely, different methods are being used to estimate flight heights of birds. To date, the relative suitability of methods for the collection of flight heights has not been rigorously appraised. For marine birds, this has primarily included visual methods from boat-based surveys, but more recently remote monitoring techniques such as high definition aerial imagery (images, video and spectrographic techniques) have been used. Alternative methods have also included bird-borne telemetry, radar, laser rangefinders, thermal imagery and acoustic methods, but their suitability to obtain reliable flight height distributions for potential use within CRM has not yet been assessed. This report details and compares each method for estimating flight heights, evaluating the relative merits and disadvantages of each method.

The purpose of this work was to develop a method for analysing digital aerial ornithology survey data, to derive species-specific flight heights. The focus of this work has been to develop an approach to analysis, rather than analysing a comprehensive dataset to derive generic flight height values. Although the project has been successful in developing such an approach to analysis, the BTO and Steering Group for the work emphasises that the values presented in this report are not intended to be used to inform assessments. Any party undertaking an ornithological collision risk assessment should seek advice from the relevant regulators and statutory nature conservation bodies on appropriate flight height values and avoidance rates to use. This report does not constitute such statutory advice.

Earth Observation data offer great potential for a range of terrestrial surveillance and management issues. Living Maps – land cover maps with a focus on priority semi-natural habitats – are being developed using state of the art data and remote sensing analyses. This report scopes out how volunteers could be engaged in the validation of the Norfolk Living Map, and how transferable proposed the techniques are to other regions of the UK.