The status of the UK’s breeding seabirds: an addendum to the fifth Birds of Conservation Concern in the United Kingdom, Channel Islands and Isle of Man and second IUCN Red List assessment of extinction risk for Great Britain

The conservation status of breeding seabirds is updated in this paper, with an additional five (Leach’s Storm-petrel, Common Gull, Great Black-backed Gull, Arctic Tern and Great Skua) joining the...

Protected areas, drought, and grazing regimes influence fire occurrence in a fire-prone Mediterranean region

This study builds on previous work as part of the ‘Polesia: wilderness without borders’ project, which developed methods to map and analyse fires using satellite imagery and other remote-sensing...

A horizon scan of global biological conservation issues for 2024

The benefits of protected areas for bird population trends may depend on their condition

BTO-led research highlights the importance of the quality of protected areas in their effectiveness.

Red Kites and onshore wind in Wales

The Welsh Red Kite population is currently in ongoing recovery after a historic decline driven by persecution, and a consequent population bottleneck during the first half of the 20th century. Trends...

Atlantic populations of a declining oceanic seabird have complex migrations and weak migratory connectivity to staging areas

Arctic Skuas are long-distance migrant seabirds that have seen large declines in breeding numbers across areas of the north-east Atlantic. Part of these declines has been attributed to poor food...

Spatially targeted nature-based solutions can mitigate climate change and nature loss but require a systems approach

Reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is one of the greatest challenges humankind is currently facing. A growing coalition of countries are now pledging to achieve net zero emissions, which means...

Anthropogenic climate and land-use change drive short-and long-term biodiversity shifts across taxa

This collaborative research involving BTO attempted to start understanding how habitat change and climate change interact. The study examined changes in over 1,000 bird, butterfly, moth and plant...

Astounding Short-eared Owl movements revealed

International research led by BTO has revealed that Short-eared Owls make astonishing nomadic migrations between nest sites as far apart as Scotland and Arctic Russia. 

Future impact of climate change on threatened seabirds

New BTO research predicts seabird declines of up to 90% by 2050 in Britain and Ireland under a ‘business as usual’ climate scenario.

Bats and ancient trees

Adjacent habitats vital for intertidal waders

A new study has revealed contrasting habitat use between and within Bar-tailed Godwits and Curlews wintering on the Wash.

Linking climate warming and land conversion to species’ range changes across Great Britain

The most notable changes over the past 75 years have been an increase in temperature and a loss of roughly 90% of lowland meadow and pasture, mainly converted to arable farmland and improved...

The current state of nature

The UK, like most other countries worldwide, has experienced a significant loss of biodiversity. The trends in nature presented in this report cover, at most, 50 years, but these follow on from major...

The status of the UK breeding European Turtle Dove Streptopelia turtur population in 2021

The UK Turtle Dove population is thought to have peaked around 1970, when there were an estimated 125,000 pairs. At this time, the species’ range extended into south-west England, eastern Wales,...

A crowded ocean: the need for demographic and movement data in seabird conservation

To implement effective conservation actions, locally and globally, we need to quantify the importance of the multiple, often interacting, threats to seabird population growth rates. Population models...

Detecting Brown Rats on seabird islands

Introduced Brown Rats can devastate seabird colonies, predating both eggs and chicks. Can we use bioacoustic technology to detect and monitor this threat?

Do Marsh Tits modify their behaviour to reduce competition?

Competition between species has been put forward as a possible reason for the declines seen in some bird species, including Marsh Tit and Willow Tit, but confirming a causal link between competition...

Landscape fires disproportionally affect areas of conservation priority but only under low moisture conditions

This study identified five fires reaching more than 100 km2, a threshold often used to classify ‘megafires’. Frequent spring and summer fires predominantly started in agricultural areas, where...

The Rare Breeding Birds Panel: five decades of monitoring the UK’s rare breeding birds

Monitoring five decades of change in the UK’s rarest breeding birds through citizen science: the Rare Breeding Birds Panel

A review of the impacts of air pollution on terrestrial birds

A review paper by BTO considers 203 studies of the effects of air pollution on 231 bird species. Of these studies, 82% document at least one negative effect associated with increasing levels of...