News from the RSPB site

Researchers monitoring some of the rarest birds in the UK have discovered that climate change has had a noticeable impact on population levels over the last quarter of a century.

Using nesting information from 42 of the UK’s rarest nesting birds between 1980 and 2004, researchers from the RSPB and Durham and Cambridge Universities have discovered that some species with a southerly distribution are doing better in the UK, while species whose distributions are centered further north are faring less well.

The best examples include the little egret and the Cetti’s warbler, two birds that colonised the south of Britain in 1996 and 1972 respectively. The latest population information for both species shows they are doing phenomenally well, with maximum populations of 433 of little egret and 1331 pairs of Cetti’s warbler nesting in the UK. Other winners include the cirl bunting and the Dartford warbler, both more numerous in Spain than in the UK.

Conversely, the redwing – a type of Scandinavian thrush – is faring badly. The redwing is a widespread visitor to the UK in winter, but as a nesting bird it only colonised the UK in 1925, reaching a peak of up to 80 pairs in the 1980s. Subsequently, the paper shows that the population of this ‘northern’ thrush has declined sharply to a just few pairs.

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