From BTO

Commonly referred to as the UK Red List for birds, the fourth review of the status of birds in the UK, Channel Islands and Isle of Man was released this month (see summary here and full report here). This updates the last assessment in 2009. Using standardised criteria, 244 species with breeding, passage or wintering populations in the UK were assessed by experts from a range of bird NGOs and assigned to the Red, Amber or Green lists of conservation concern.

How the lists are decided

The assessment is based on the most up-to-date evidence available and criteria include conservation status at global and European levels and, within the UK: historical decline, trends in population and range, rarity, localised distribution and international importance. The lists now exclude three former breeding species, two previously red-listed, now considered to have ceased breeding in the UK (serin, Temminck’s stint and the once widespread wryneck). The only new species assessed by BoCC4, Caspian gull, went onto the Amber list.

The growing Red list

This update shows that many bird species are increasingly at risk. Nineteen species were red-listed for the first time due to worsening population status, and one species (merlin) was returned to the Red list. In most cases, this is due to evidence from monitoring schemes such as BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) of increasingly severe declines in breeding populations (e.g. for curlew, nightingale, pied flycatcher, whinchat grey wagtail and mistle thrush), surveys of scarce breeders such as dotterel, black redstart and Slavonian grebe, or by seabird monitoring (e.g. kittiwake and shag). Puffin is red-listed due to its global assessment as Vulnerable.

From green to red

Two species moved directly from the Green to Red list: white-fronted goose on account of the non-breeding population decline and long-tailed duck as a consequence of being classified as Globally Threatened. In addition to white-fronted goose, three other species (red-necked grebe, ringed plover and pochard) are red-listed for the first time due to increasingly marked declines in wintering populations, the latter also classified globally as Vulnerable. Woodcock joins the Red List, as a consequence of severe declines in breeding range. These changes increase the Red List to 67 species, more than 25% of all those assessed.

What kinds of birds are in most trouble?

How does the Red List break down across habitats? Despite no new additions, farmland birds still have the greatest percentage of species (12 of 26) on the Red List. Lowland wetland species have the smallest proportion: only four of 31.  Five upland birds (curlew, dotterel, grey wagtail, whinchat and merlin) were added, bringing the total for this habitat to 12. Three more woodland birds, woodcock, nightingale and pied flycatcher, were added to the Red list bringing the total of woodland birds to sixteen. With the addition of kittiwake, shag and puffin to the Red list, the number of seabirds on the list has nearly doubled and it now includes four of the UK’s seaducks. House sparrow and black redstart are the only two urban species. The Red List now includes eight globally threatened species, 16 long distance migrants, three of the UK’s four gamebirds and five of the UK’s six larger thrushes.

Silver linings?

There is also some good news. Two previously red-listed species (nightjar and bittern) have shown marked improvements in population status, attributed largely to sustainable forest management and targeted conservation action, have moved to the Amber list. The rapidly spreading red kite is another conservation success story, moving from Amber to Green. Former red-listed species such as stone-curlew and marsh harrier, continue to show modest recovery in numbers and remain amber-listed. Overall, the Amber list has been reduced from 126 in BOCC3 to 96 in BOCC4 as a consequence of both negative changes (moves to the Red list) and positive changes (moves to the Green list). The Green list, now 81, includes a range of common garden species such as blue tit, blackbird, and robin, and saw a net increase of 14 species such as little egret, little grebe, firecrest, woodlark, common whitethroat, wheatear and bearded tit.

A summary of the new list is available here. The full list is available through British Birds here.

Jersey’s own Conservation Status of Jersey’s Birds: Jersey’s bird populations in the 21st Century can be downloaded here

From Rare Bird Alert

The use of neonicotinoid pesticides, linked to deaths of bees, may be contributing to the decline of butterflies in the UK, a study has revealed.

Previous research has demonstrated that these chemicals, widely used in agriculture, appear to be harming bees, birds and other wildlife. But the study (published by PeerJ) by the Universities of Stirling and Sussex in partnership with Butterfly Conservation and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology is the first scientific evidence of a possible negative impact on widespread UK butterflies.

Neonicotinoids were introduced in the mid-1990s as a replacement for older chemicals. They are a systematic insecticide, meaning that they are absorbed into every cell in a plant, making all parts poisonous to pests. The chemicals remain in the environment and can be absorbed by the wildflowers growing in field margins, many of which provide a nectar source for butterflies and food-plants for their caterpillars. The study found population trends of 15 species showed declines associated with neonicotinoid use, including small tortoiseshell, small skipper and wall.

The study was based on data gathered by volunteers from more than 1,000 sites across the UK as part of the long-running UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme (UKBMS). Ecologist Dr Andre Gilburn of the University of Stirling, who led the study, said: “Our study not only identifies a worrying link between the use of neonicotinoids and declines in butterflies, but also suggests that the strength of their impact on many species could be huge.”

Dr Tom Brereton, Head of Monitoring at Butterfly Conservation, said: “We are extremely concerned with the findings of the study and are calling for urgent research to see whether the correlations we found are caused by neonicotinoid use, or some other aspect of intensive farming.

“Widespread butterflies have declined by 58 per cent on farmland in England over the last 10 years giving concern for the general health of the countryside and for these and other insects in particular.”

Dave Goulson, Professor of Biology at the University of Sussex said: “Many of us can remember a time when our meadows and hedgerows had far more butterflies, bees and other insects than today. “This study adds to the growing mountain of evidence that neonicotinoids are one of the causes of these declines.”

The paper Are neonicotinoid insecticides driving declines of widespread butterflies? Can be downloaded here

Jersey’s own The State of Jersey’s Butterflies: Jersey Butterfly Monitoring Scheme 2004 to 2013 can be downloaded here

In order to comply with its environmental responsibilities under legally binding agreements, the Department of the Environment last year carried out a survey of small mammal species on the Island to understand changes or threats to populations and to protect them from further loss.

The Department last carried out a similar survey 16 years ago and wanted to find out what changes have occurred since then. In 2014 the Department commissioned Natural Solutions Ltd. to carry out a survey of small mammals in Jersey and to prepare a detailed assessment of the changes that have occurred in population densities since an initial survey carried out in 1998.

The results of the latest survey, compiled by Denise McGowan and Professor John Gurnell, were published recently.

This new report looks at population numbers, densities and biomass over different seasons and habitats, with the aim of finding out more about the changes that have occurred over the 16 year period.

Small mammals matter because they play a vital role in maintaining a balanced ecosystem in Jersey, as keystone prey species for our large predators including birds of prey and snakes. They are indicators of habitat quality and help shape our environment.

Four small mammal species were surveyed at 22 sites in nine different habitats across the Island:

• Wood mouse Apodemus sylvaticus
• Jersey bank vole Myodes glareolus caesarius
• Lesser white-toothed shrew Crocidura suaveolens
• Millet’s shrew Sorex coronatus

The vole is a unique Jersey sub-species and, in the British Isles, the lesser white-toothed shrew is only found in Jersey, Sark and the Isles of Scilly and Millet’s (or French) shrew only in Jersey. The vole and the two shrew species are protected under the Conservation of Wildlife (Jersey) Law 2000 and Jersey is committed through its legislation and international conventions to monitor and protect them.

Results indicate that since 1998, wood mice have continued to be widespread; the Jersey bank vole has followed a similar pattern but appeared to favour heathlands, hedgerows, woodlands and undisturbed grasslands.

The data for shrew species was more difficult to compare across the two surveys due to a low capture rate and a patchy distribution across sites, seasons and years.

Further work is required to determine what could be affecting the shrews’ distribution and population numbers in Jersey.

Download the full report here

From Birdguides

New research by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has revealed that bird food provided in our gardens has helped blackcaps to rapidly evolve a successful new migration route. This is the first time that garden bird feeding has been shown to affect large-scale bird distributions.

Historically, the migratory blackcap was only a breeding summer visitor to the British Isles. However, over the last 60 years there have been surprising changes in the species’ migration behaviour, with birds from central Europe visiting our gardens in winter, rather than heading to their usual wintering grounds in southern Spain. The reasons why the British Isles have become great for blackcaps were previously unclear, but now scientists have been able to uncover some answers, using the extensive data on garden birds and feeders collected by thousands of volunteer birdwatchers for the BTO’s weekly Garden BirdWatch survey.

The new study, published in the international journal Global Change Biology, has revealed that blackcaps are becoming increasingly associated with garden bird feeding over time, and that supplementary foods, particularly fats and sunflower hearts, are affecting their national distribution in winter. The findings also indicate that changes in the British winter climate have been important in shaping the evolution of this new migration behaviour.

Dr Kate Plummer, BTO Research Ecologist and lead author of the paper, said: “This is the first scientific evidence that supplementary foods provided in gardens can influence the evolution of wild birds, so the findings are extremely important.

“It’s been suspected for a long time that blackcaps started coming to Britain in winter to take advantage of the bird food being provided in gardens. However, it’s only now that we have actually found concrete evidence to support this, thanks to the efforts of citizen scientists.”

Kate Risely, BTO Garden BirdWatch Organiser, added: “The thousands of people who send us information on the birds and bird food in their gardens can be very proud of the part they have played in this research. It is only by collecting regular records of birds that we can find out how our activities are affecting them.”

As the global environment rapidly changes due to human activities, it is becoming increasingly important that we understand if, and how, species are able to respond. These findings indicate that some species, like blackcap, may be more resilient to environmental change than we previously assumed.

The research is set to continue with an investigation into how garden bird feeding has affected goldfinch numbers, and over the winter the BTO will be calling for observations from people who feed goldfinches in their gardens.

In Jersey, our own Garden Bird Watch results have shown increasing numbers of blackcaps in the Island’s gardens. Interestingly, and supporting the new study, our own monitoring shows that the blackcaps that spend the spring and summer in our woodlands all but disappear over winter while they are easy to find in gardens over this period.

Blackcap. Jersey Garden Bird Watch 2002-2015

Read the abstract of the full paper Is supplementary feeding in gardens a driver of evolutionary change in a migratory bird species? here

From The Guardian

Seabirds are eating ‘astronomical’ amounts of marine debris they mistake for food such as fish eggs or other healthy material. The biggest problem areas are in the Pacific, Australia and New Zealand but local populations are not immune to this threat.

Full scale of plastic in the world’s oceans revealed for first time

Over five trillion pieces of plastic are floating in our oceans says a comprehensive study of plastic pollution around the world published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

As many as nine out of 10 of the world’s seabirds are likely to have pieces of plastic in their guts, the new study estimates. An Australian team of scientists who have studied birds and marine debris found that far more seabirds were affected than the previous estimate of 29%.

“It’s pretty astronomical,” said study co-author Denise Hardesty, a senior research scientist at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).

She said the problem with plastics in the ocean was increasing as the world made more of it. “In the next 11 years we will make as much plastic as has been made since industrial plastic production began in the 1950s.”

Birds mistook plastic bits for fish eggs so “they think they’re getting a proper meal but they’re really getting a plastic meal”, Hardesty said.

CNN Report

Some species of albatross and shearwaters seem to be the most prone to eating plastic pieces. This video is not for the faint-hearted and includes some distressing scenes.

Hardesty combined computer simulations of garbage and the birds, as well as their eating habits, to see where the worst problems are. She found the biggest problem was not where there was the most garbage, such as the infamous patch in the central north Pacific Ocean.

Instead it was in areas with the greatest number of different species, especially in the southern hemisphere near Australia and New Zealand. Areas around North America and Europe were better off, she said. By reducing plastic pellets Europe was seeing less of it in one key bird, the northern fulmar (see assessment of fulmars in local waters here).

Local gannets show that plastic in the sea is not just collected for food. High numbers of the nests on Alderney’s colonies include material such as net strings collected from the sea surface. The gannets must think that its attractive but many young and adult birds die each year, caught at their own nests (see report from Canada here) .

Drowning in plastic

We’ve all heard stories of islands of floating rubbish in the middle of the oceans, but it’s the trillions of barely visible microscopic fragments that are set to be the world’s next ecological emergency. Hardesty said she had seen an entire glowstick and three balloons in a single short-tailed shearwater.

“I have seen everything from cigarette lighters … to bottle caps to model cars. I’ve found toys,” Hardesty said.

And it is only likely to get worse. By 2050, 99% of seabirds will have plastic in them, Hardesty’s computer model forecasts.

Read the new PNAS paper Threat of plastic pollution to seabirds is global, pervasive, and increasing here

Read the New review of the effects of plastic litter on marine wildlife and other relevant articles from Wageningen UR (University & Research Centre) here

From BirdGuides

Some stay, some go, but 2013 to 2014 was a good year for many of Britain’s birds. The latest results from the BTO’s Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) brought some short-term, positive news for a number of both migratory and resident species against a backdrop of long-term declines for many, long-distance migrants in particular.

The possible reasons for these short-term increases vary between species. There is no evidence that the 2013 breeding season was a particularly good one, and for some species it was a poor season, probably related to the fact it was the UK’s coldest spring since 1962.

Lesser whitethroat (+ 34%), common whitethroat (+ 18%), tree pipit (+ 31%), willow warbler (+ 6%) and the familiar cuckoo (+ 27%) are among the long-distance species, that travel south of the Sahara for the winter months, to have increased between 2013 and 2014. The survival of migratory species like these is thought to be influenced by rainfall levels in the Sahel, just south of the Sahara. This applies for both species that spend the winter there, such as two whitethroat species, and those that use the region as a stop-over site (to rest and refuel before continuing further south) like the willow warbler and cuckoo. Rainfall levels affect the availability of insect prey on which these species rely. Rainfall in the region during the summer of 2013 was just below the long-term average, so this doesn’t provide a ready explanation for the respite seen in this year’s BBS report, but the three years previous to this included two that were amongst the wettest since the late 1960s, possibly leading to generally better conditions in the area in the winter of 2013/14.

Despite the favourable short-term trends revealed in the BBS report, the long-term trends for many of ‘our’ migratory species are not so positive. Between 1995 and 2013, cuckoo declined by 46%, spotted flycatcher by 47%, whinchat by 54%, wood warbler by 58%, pied flycatcher by 60% and, as reported here before, turtle dove by 91%, with large decreases also found in several other species.

There are many factors throughout the migration route and on the wintering grounds that could be playing a part in the alarming decline of long-distance migrants. Wetland loss and degradation and the clearance of wooded savannah is likely to be affecting the wintering grounds of long-distance migrants, and the loss of migration stop-over sites, and hunting and trapping along the way, may compound the problem for some species.

The latest BBS results show positive changes in numbers of some partial migrants (species in which some individuals stay in the UK for the winter, while others venture as far south as North Africa). Increases between 2013 and 2014 were found for chiffchaff (+ 21%), blackcap (+ 14%) and meadow pipit (+ 14%).

There was good news too for some resident species which remain in the UK for the winter. There were short-term increases for stonechat (+ 76%), kingfisher (+ 50%), grey wagtail (+ 50%) and wren (+ 34%). Residents are susceptible to harsh weather conditions when life gets tough, both in terms of finding food and expending extra energy just to keep warm.

Sarah Harris, BBS Organiser at the British Trust for Ornithology, said: “It is refreshing to see some of our resident and migrant birds have had a good year, but this is against a backdrop of long-term declines for many, long-distance migrants in particular. To see turtle dove exceed a 90% decline between 1995 and 2013 is very worrying indeed. We cannot thank the dedicated BBS volunteers enough for all their efforts, monitoring our common and widespread birds, their contributions are invaluable.”

Deborah Procter, Senior Monitoring Ecologist at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, added: “Long-term data from the BBS give us a window on to the state of UK biodiversity. The annually updated trends at both UK and country level promote investigation to understand the underlying causes of change in our natural capital assets. Many thanks to the several thousand volunteers who gather the evidence that makes this work possible.”

The Channel Islands have submitted dated to BBS since the project started and, for the second year running, 25 squares were covered with 76 species recorded. This is a stable level of coverage and one hoped to continue with the assistance in future of the Alderney Wildlife Trust.

Dr Mark Eaton, RSPB Principal Conservation Scientist, RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, said: “With their travels crossing continents, migratory birds can be affected by many factors on different stages of their amazing journeys. Finding ways of boosting their populations requires international trust and collaboration. A turtle dove in Europe requires the protection of the Birds Directive and when it is in Africa need sufficient habitat to feed to fatten for the return journey to Europe. These birds belong to everyone and everyone along their migration routes needs to play a part in these birds survival.”

Download and read the full report The Breeding Bird Survey 2014: The population trends of the UK’s breeding birds here