New report exposes worrying decline of woodland birds
The State of the UK's Birds 2020, produced by the RSPB, the BTO and the WWT, has revealed that woodland species are in steep decline and one of them, Willow Tit, is now Britain's fastest-declining resident bird.
Woodland species have slumped by 27% since the 1970s and are continuing to dramatically decline, falling by some 7% over the past five years, according to the new report. The breeding populations of five woodland specialists – Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, Lesser Redpoll, Spotted Flycatcher, Western Capercaillie and Marsh Tit – are now less than a quarter of what they were 50 years ago.
Willow Tit numbers have dropped by a third in merely 12 years (Morten Scheller Jensen).
The worst hit species, however, is Willow Tit, which now has the unenviable title of Britain's fastest-declining resident. Numbers of the tit have plummeted by 94% since 1970, and by a third since 2008. The species, which lives in dense birch thickets close to wetlands or water, has almost entirely vanished from south-east England.
According to Mark Eaton, principal conservation scientist at the RSPB, Willow Tit's decline is caused by a burgeoning wild deer population eating out dense thickets and the scrubby under-storey of many woodlands, the drying out of soils caused by the climate crisis, and the fragmentation of woods because of developments such as housing, new roads, and new railways. All three trends are particularly pronounced in the south-east.
While a few woodland species such as Goldcrest can survive in non-native conifer plantations, such new forests – being planted in part to offset carbon emissions – will not help the declining birds. Fiona Burns, lead author of the report said: "The UK's birds are telling us that nature is in retreat. The continuing losses seen across many species are not sustainable and more needs to be done to stop the declines and help populations revive and recover."
The Breeding Bird Survey also shows a continuing decline for farmland birds, including Britain’s fastest-declining bird: European Turtle Dove. Farmland birds have continued to decline by 5% between 2013 and 2018 with an overall decline of 45% on 1970 populations.
One thriving farmland bird is Woodpigeon, which is singlehandedly responsible for the biomass of native British birds actually rising since the late 1960s, despite the loss of 19 million pairs of native birds, to leave a population of 83 million native pairs. This species has prospered with the intensification of arable farming, fattening up on winter-sown crops and oilseed rape.
Some good news emerged from the report. Climatic warming has helped waterbirds colonise Britain, with Western Cattle Egret joining Little Egret, Little Bittern and Eurasian Spoonbill in breeding successfully. Populations of some of Britain's rarer breeding birds have also increased, with Cirl Bunting and Eurasian Stone-curlew responding to targeted conservation action.
The full report can be accessed here.
