The latest assessment of the status of all of the UK’s 246
regularly occurring birds – Birds of Conservation Concern 3 –
shows 52 are now of the highest conservation concern and have been
placed on the assessment’s red list. The revised red list now
includes even more familiar countryside birds, including the
cuckoo, lapwing and yellow wagtail, joining other widespread
species such as the turtle dove, grey partridge, house sparrow and
starling.
Birds of Conservation Concern 3 is compiled by a partnership of
organisations, including the British Trust for Ornithology,
Countryside Council for Wales, Game & Wildlife Conservation
Trust, Joint Nature Conservation Committee, Natural England,
Northern Ireland Environment Agency, RSPB, Scottish Natural
Heritage, and the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust.
Three species of seabird join the red list for the first time.
The Balearic shearwater - a smaller relative of the albatross -
visits the UK from its Mediterranean breeding grounds regularly
each autumn. This seabird, which is thought to face a higher risk
of global extinction even than the giant panda - is the rarest bird
to regularly occur in the UK. Highlighting concerns about the
fortunes of seabirds around the northern coasts of the British
Isles, the Arctic skua has joined the red list straight from the
2002 green list: the only species to do so. The familiar herring
gull also joins the red list as its population has more than halved
in recent times.
Peter Bridgewater, Chair of JNCC, said: “The review has
highlighted the significance of UK marine areas for the globally
threatened Balearic Shearwater. The importance of British
waters for this seabird – where it occurs in significant numbers –
was not previously known. The review demonstrates the
international significance of the UK, especially its marine
environments, for many species, and their conservation in the
UK is an important foundation in protecting many birds across their
international ranges.”