Accredited official statistics

Wild bird populations in the UK and in England

Annual trends in wild bird populations in the UK and England.

Documents

Wild bird populations in the UK and England

Details

Bird populations have long been considered to provide a good indication of the broad state of wildlife. This is because they occupy a wide range of habitats and respond to environmental pressures that also operate on other groups of wildlife. In addition there are considerable long-term data on changes in bird populations, which help in the interpretation of shorter term fluctuations in numbers.

The bird population indices have been compiled in conjunction with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC).

As part of the improvements to the publication this year, we have combined the two releases into a single release. We hope that this will help users understand differences in data or trends in England compared to the UK.

For more statistics about the status of bird populations internationally, please see the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme website.

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Updates to this page

Published 6 December 2012
Last updated 12 November 2024 + show all updates
  1. Annual Update.

  2. Annual update.

  3. Wild birds publication with 2021 data published

  4. Updated for Wintering Waterbirds’

  5. Annual update.

  6. New publication for 2019.

  7. Annual publication.

  8. Annual update.

  9. Publication revised and re-published.

  10. Amendments made to statistical notice.

  11. Annual update.

  12. Annual update to statistical release.

  13. Amendment to figure for long term change for reed bunting as a result of a typo error in the original release.

  14. 2014 wild bird release published.

  15. Introductory paper added to the publication

  16. 2012 figures update

  17. First published.

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