Avocets

Yours truly together with Andy and Will visited the Sand Martin colony on Wednesday where we caught 25 martins. Here’s a LINK  to that day for readers to catch up. 

During our 4 hours of work with the Sand Martins we noted a pair of Avocets across the more distant, quieter area of the farm that has less traffic from farm vehicles. The larger farm contains fishing lakes where anglers often occupy the wet edges of two other pools that would otherwise be attractive to Avocets and the like. The Avocets were very vocal across a wide area and engaged in aggressive bouts of chasing off passing crows and gulls. as well as surveying us from above.

It seemed fairly obvious that the adult birds had youngsters in tow and were in the process of showing their chicks the ropes while letting them explore their immediate birth area. It’s a process that birds must go through so as to prepare youngsters for when they go it alone. 

 

Avocet

 

We three met up again this morning in the hope of locating and then ringing the chicks, Andy with his trusty landing net, me and Will with binos and sharp eyesight respectively.  Three heads and three sets of eyes are better than one when finding wader chicks that can run, hide, swim or submerge, often all three. 

And so it proved. As soon as we approached the pool we thought might be the one we saw three chicks almost together at the edge of the pool, chicks of the perfect size for ringing. Within a couple of minutes all three Avocet chicks were in the landing net, then quickly ringed and released to their parents close by. 

Avocet

Avocet chick

Avocet chicks

Avocet

Avocet

Note: Avocet Recurvirostra avosettta is a specially protected species. 

All birds are protected in some form, but some species have additional protection during the breeding season as do their nests, eggs and dependent young. To disturb Avocets and other species we have a special licence in advance. 

In England and Scotland, permits for ringing and/or nest recording are issued by the BTO on behalf of the relevant Country Agency; licences for other activities are issued directly from Natural England or NatureScot. In Wales, all licences are issued directly by Natural Resources Wales but ones for ringing and/or nest recording are applied for via the BTO, British Trust for Ornithology.

Log in soon folks. You never know what might be in the news with Another Bird Blog.

 

An Interesting Redpoll - Well Aren’t They All?

There’s no birding or bird ringing for a day or two with both rain and wind preventing activities. 

However, there came an interesting if slightly puzzling recovery of Lesser Redpoll AJD6136. 

Lesser Redpoll

 

We caught and ringed redpoll AJD6136 at Oakenclough on the morning of 1st October 2018. The  morning produced a catch of 6 Lesser Redpolls, 4 Goldfinch, singles of Chaffinch and Meadow Pipit, plus a couple of Great and Blue titmice; a typical if not over large mix of early October local and migrant species. 

At this time of year many Lesser Redpolls from Northern England and Scotland are on their way south to winter in France and the hotspot of Belgium, the latter a country with a special attraction to the species. A Belgian winter landscape holds a redpoll's preferred seeds in abundance and the ambient temperatures are certainly preferable to those of Scotland.

Lesser Redpoll from BTO Migration Atlas

“Most recovery data of Lesser Redpolls comes via North and North West European ringing regions. Most populations follow on average a North to South or North West to West/South East axis, with recoveries as far as N Kazakhstan, up to China. There are two recoveries at more than 4000 km, mostly less than 2000 km.”  BTO.

Only this week did we learn that the same Lesser Redpoll AJD6136 was recaptured by Belgian ringers 44 days later at Maubray, Hainaut, Belgium on 18th October 2018. Yes, that’s right; it took four years for the information to reach us that AJD6136 was recaptured in the centre of the Belgium hotspot pictured above. 

Lesser Redpoll AJD6136 - Lancashire to Belgium

 

A likely but only partial explanation for the four year delay is that the Belgian end of the recovery noted the ring as AJO6136 rather than AJD6136, transposing the letter “D” as “O”. 

This simple error would cause confusion plus double checking and detective work in both the BTO UK and Bruxelles, Belgium end of operations with an exchange of emails and phone calls until the true number could be confirmed. The number AJO6136, if it existed and in circulation, would probably refer to a different species, perhaps one that was highly unlikely to be found in Belgium in the month of November. 

All’s well that ends well but the lesson is that once a ringed migratory bird is released it is unlikely to be caught again so the utmost care should be taken with ring numbers and sequences that are not recognised. 

Our own procedure, after first identifying the species and realising that the bird has an unfamiliar ring, is that the ring number, letters, plus country code if applicable, are read and double checked by two people.  One can never be quite sure where that bird was ringed!

European Bee-eater

I just double checked the weather forecasts for the week ahead again. It’s not good news for anyone who likes to be out and about. 

Keep watching for a window of opportunity and news, views and photographs here on Another Bird Blog. 

 

More Of the Same

After the latest visit to Gulf Lane Pilling/Cockerham today I carried out a quick audit of results to date. 

The DemOn program produced a table in seconds detailing the species and numbers caught at this single wintering plot since January 2016. The program itemised the number of “new”, N birds and the number of subsequent, “S” birds. N is self explanatory as “New”, the very first capture of an individual which is then fitted with a numbered ring. “S” refers to a bird that is caught on a subsequent occasion, one previously ringed by ourselves and later recaptured, or a bird ring elsewhere by another ringer and recaptured by ourselves. 

Linnets and others -2016 to 2021- via BTO DemOn

The 786 Linnet captures broken down into years equate to: 

2016 - 153 

2017 - 276 

2018 - 79 

2019 -113 

2020 - 138 

2021 - 27 to date 

The 11 subsequent captures relate to just 6 Linnets ringed at Gulf Lane and then recaptured at a later date. The remaining five individuals relate to exchanges between Gulf Lane and Northern Scotland and one between Gulf Lane and Walney Island. One of the birds was captured twice on North Ronaldsay, Orkney in the same spring. 

Linnet connections to Scotland

 

While it is interesting to attain “subsequent” records, our own birds, or better still a bird ringed elsewhere, the fact that we have so few as 11 “subsequent” Linnet records may surprise readers who follow our exploits. They will know that our winter ringing here is as regular and committed as the weather will allow and perhaps think that we catch the same birds many times over - we don't. 

Even during the weeks where more than one day is doable, we rarely capture the same bird twice. Catching “one of our own” is quite a cause for celebration. These results tell us that our winter Linnets are highly mobile, probably on an hourly, daily and possibly weekly basis and that the numbers we count are mere snapshots in time. 

Linnet

Linnet

Our latest effort this morning of 5 January proved unproductive with just 2 new Linnets, an adult male and an adult female. The male proved to be the biggest of the winter so far with a wing length of 86mm, a figure close to the expected maximum for a male, a measurement that points to Scottish origin. 

Linnets

 

Gulf Lane - Pilling/Cockerham 

This morning's flock maxed out at 30, most of which were reluctant to feed in the target zone: we thought that some must be recent captures that have learnt the ropes of when to visit and occasions to avoid the largesse.  Roaming Linnet flocks are social units containing a diverse, variable membership of individuals and numbers at any given time, units that are able to remember regular feeding spots and to use them according to their own requirements.     

Other visitors today - 2 Reed Bunting, 1 Stonechat, 1 Song Thrush, 1 Robin, 1 Chaffinch, 1 Kestrel, 1 Sparrowhawk, 1 Barn Owl, 1 Little Egret. 

Today was a slightly disappointing result on a visit that may prove to be the last for some weeks if the nation is to be placed under lockdown again. 

We remain optimistic that during this latest lockdown small-scale bird ringing will continue to be seen as a necessary and essential activity. Bird ringing makes a vital contribution to society and to conservation while promoting mental and physical well-being to those taking part.

 

House Sparrows – Who Cares!

For today’s post I reproduce a beautifully written piece about the House Sparrow. The article first appeared in The Irish Times in March 2001. So insightful and relevant is the piece still, and so little has changed, that it could have been penned just yesterday. To break the text a little I thought to include my own photographs; and then I discovered I don’t have too many of Passer domesticus, the House Sparrow. How sad is that? 

The Sad Decline of the Street-wise Sparrow. Michael Viney - The Irish Times March 17, 2001. 

You'd swear the sparrows hadn't eaten for a month, the way they go at the nuts: the thrust of the neck, the roadhammer bill, a shudder of effort right down to the tail. Beside them, the goldfinches are positively dainty at table, not to mention far better dressed. 

That may not be fair. Granted, there were mornings in the snow when a half-dozen Technicolor goldfinches swinging on the feeder made a picture for a calendar, but a really close inspection of a cock house sparrow in spring finds a pleasing enough attire. This is when the white tips of its breast-feathers wear off, to uncover the rich black bib. A smart, dove-grey crown to the head, a crisp weave of chestnut and buff in the wings make up quite a distinctive logo for a little brown bird. 

People are beginning actually to look at the house sparrow, now that it's disappearing. Stories of its decline in Ireland's cities and suburbs are matched to "catastrophic" losses in London and Glasgow. Twenty-year declines are reported in much of western Europe, and even in North America, from Quebec down to Florida. One big study near Lake Constance in Germany found sparrows down by 23 per cent in the 1980s alone. 

House Sparrow 

Sparrows are such a diverse tribe, the evolutionary scientists' term of "adaptive radiation" might have been made for them. Our own house sparrow, Passer domesticus, is just one of 20 species spread across the world and itself has a dozen different races. Some of their names - P.d. niloticus, persicus, biblicus - hint at the ancient heartland where bird and man evolved together. 

In the fertile crescent of the Middle East, sparrows were seed-eaters, feeding on the grasses that the first farmers selected into cereals. As cultivation spread, and hunter-gatherers settled on the land, the sparrow kept them company, all the way, eventually, to Ireland one way and Siberia the other. No fewer than 14 of the world's 20 species now live happily alongside people and nest in holes in their buildings. 

In Ireland, P. domesticus probably had its hey-day in the early 19th century, when the population was highest, the towns had the most horses, and even the west of the island was rich in patches of oats and potato-ridge weed seeds. At the century's end, Richard Ussher found the sparrow "spread throughout Ireland to the remotest coasts, and delights in the congested districts where the numerous thatched cabins afford it comfortable homes". Ireland's sparrows shared in the decline that followed the replacement of the horse by the car and tractor. But recent decades have seen other trends working against them: the end of the west's small oatfields; of farmyard hens and ducks and their dishes of mashed potato and scatterings of grain; the mowing of grass for silage before it seeds; the ploughing-in of autumn grain stubbles, the use of herbicides to rid field margins of seeding weeds. 

Many of these changes wove together in the 1970s, which is when the wider decline of the house-sparrow began to take effect. In the New Atlas of Breeding Birds published in 1993, the number of empty circles in the west of Ireland and small-farm Scotland was quite striking. 

House Sparrow 

Currently, BirdWatch Ireland's countryside breeding bird survey finds the sparrow nesting in only 40 per cent of the squares under census. And in its regular garden bird survey, the sparrow has dropped four places in the past four years. Now Mary Toomey, of the Department of Zoology in Trinity College, Dublin, has taken on a special study of the Irish sparrow in its natural habitats. 

It's in the cities that its collapse seems most noticeable, and this invites its own speculations - cats, for example. The Mammal Society of the UK recently analysed the records of what was killed or captured, over five months, by 964 cats. Among their 14,000 prey items, which included weasels, frogs and bats, were 961 house sparrows. An earlier study, in an English village, found that cats accounted for almost a third of sparrow deaths in one year. 

But the impact of predators does not impress J. Denis Summers-Smith, the British engineer who has studied sparrows for 50 years, as an important explanation. Not even the undoubted increase in urban and suburban sparrowhawks seems to him to have much bearing on the "catastrophic" inner-city declines. 

Some conjecture that these declines have coincided with the introduction of lead-free petrol, with its special additives, or that the particles in diesel exhaust may block the sparrows' capillaries. But the picture of a sudden inner-city collapse could be misleading. The real stronghold for the sparrow has been the suburban garden, and the dispersal of surplus young from suburban nests may have masked a decline both in the city and the countryside. 

For Summers-Smith, the big pressure on Passer domesticus has to be food - not so much the fall-off in year-round seed supply as in the insect food needed by the sparrow nestlings for the first critical days of their lives. Perhaps, by helping to kill off the arthropods - the insects, spiders and crustaceans - traffic fumes are working to make cities unlivable for these once street-wise little birds. In this respect, he suggests, we should think of the sparrow as the modern equivalent of the miner's canary. 

House Sparrow

House Sparrow 

On our Mayo acre, at least, neither insects nor grass and weed seeds are any problem. Our little colony of a dozen or so sparrows built up quickly a few years ago, drawn by the winter nut-feeders, and will clearly be with us for the rest of our days. They have a special fondness for the thorn bush that leans above the septic tank and gather there for sessions of "social singing" on winter afternoons, a disyllabic Greek chorus drifting in the wind. 

Now, the chirruping is more scattered: a communication between partners. One lifelong pair are already well ensconced in the hole they used last year, under the ridge tiles of the porch; others find niches in the wood-shed. If I put up nest-boxes, tits and sparrows would compete for them and the sparrows, probably, would win. There is a critical size of hole that excludes them (32 mm), but who, in these changed days, would want to know that?

House Sparrow

==================

For the current state of play of the House Sparrow I recommend a read of The British Trust for Ornithology

Or maybe the story about The Most Common Bird in The World at Smithsonian US. 

Goldfinch Compensation

A red sky broke over the hills to the east of Oakenclough on Thursday. It was a warning we should have heeded. But after making the effort for a 6 o'clock start and all that entails, Andy and I saw little reason not to carry on. After all, just two days earlier here at Oakenclough we’d caught 45 birds including our record breaking catch of eleven Tree Pipits.

Red Sky In The Morning 

A couple of hours later we asked how two seemingly similar days could be so different in terms of both the birds around and those we caught. The differences were that Wednesday was warm and sunny with a gentle waft from the north while Thursday saw a stronger breeze, this time from the south west with cooler temperatures that demanded an extra layer of top coat for the ringers.

Nine birds was a very poor result, so pathetic that the only “A” rings required were for four Blue Tits. Otherwise a couple of juvenile “willys “and a single adult “chiff” proved the highlights of 4 Blue Tit, 2 Willow Warbler, 1 Chiffchaff, 1 Wren and 1 Dunnock.

Willow Warbler 

Chiffchaff 

Dunnock 

On Friday morning I hoped for recompense by way of catching Goldfinches, a few of those suddenly returned to the garden after a major absence of several weeks. The killer cat of next door has left for pastures new, allowing me to once again use a mist net on my own property.

The morning was quite breezy but where the relatively sheltered garden meant a reasonable catch was possible. Indeed it was with 21 Goldfinch and a single Robin caught until rain returned soon after lunch.

This ratio of species is very representative of gardens in our neighbourhood where larger, shyer or perhaps cleverer birds like Jackdaw, Woodpigeon and House Sparrow stay away when a net is set. Our own Woodpigeons are still pre-occupied with "woody nookie".

The fact that I caught entirely Goldfinches of the year, some still in very juvenile plumage, displays this species’ ability to reproduce throughout the breeding season with up to three broods recorded. 

Goldfinch 

Goldfinch 

The Goldfinch has enjoyed a wide population boom during recent years.

BTO - “Goldfinch abundance fell sharply from the mid-1970s until the mid-1980s, but the decline was both preceded and followed by significant population increases. The current upturn lifted the species from the amber list of conservation concern into the green category, accompanied by an increase in its use of gardens for winter feeding.

The Breeding Bird Survey map of change in relative density between 1994-96 and 2007-09 indicates that increases have occurred almost everywhere, with the exception of the far southeast. These population changes can be explained almost entirely by changes in annual survival rates, which may have resulted from a reduction in the availability of weed seeds, due to agricultural intensification, and subsequent increased use of other food sources such as garden bird tables and niger feeders; for migrants, the effects of environmental change or increased hunting pressure in France and Iberia, where the majority then wintered, may have temporarily reduced survival rates (Siriwardena et al. 1999).

There have been no clear changes in productivity as measured by Nest Records Scheme and Constant Effort Sites (ringing). The recent severe losses of Greenfinches from gardens are likely to have afforded Goldfinches far better access to provided food. A strong trend towards earlier laying may be partly explained by recent climate change (Crick & Sparks 1999).

There has been widespread moderate increase across Europe since 1980. A strong increase has been recorded in the Republic of Ireland since 1998 (Crowe 2012).” 

Goldfinch - BTO/JNCC BirdTrends Report 

Stay tuned to Another Bird Blog. There's more news, views and pictures soon.

Linking today with Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Trends

The weather’s becoming unfit for man or beast. Storm Diana is hurtling up the Irish Sea and it looks like there will be zero birding or ringing for a few days or more. 

So for this post I'm turning to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) and recent information on indicators of bird population trends for UK and England, first published on 8 November 2018. 

These indicators are part of the Government’s suite of biodiversity indicators that show the fortunes of birds of farmland, woodland, waterways & and wetlands, and marine & coastal between 1970 and 2017. 

Regular readers may recognise a number of bird names here as they occur here on the blog with alarming regularity, usually for the reasons highlighted again by this latest information, the relentless downward trend of their populations. The graphs below may suggest some recent levelling off which may not be a cause for celebration when so many species are at levels which could hardy drop much more. There are still too many downward trends on the diagrams and hardly any showing upward movements. The bold highlights are my own, those that equate to the situation here in Lancashire. 

The indicators are calculated annually by the BTO, RSPB and Department for Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) and are based almost entirely on data collected by volunteers contributing to national bird monitoring schemes such as the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey and the BTO/RSPB/JNCC Wetland Bird Survey. 

Population trends of common birds that are native to, and breed in, the UK are assessed using two assessment periods: long-term (for most species between 1970 and 2017), and short-term (2011-2016). The wintering bird indicator shows how the internationally-important numbers of wintering waders, wildfowl and other water-birds using coasts and wetlands have changed since c1975. 

Changes in the abundance of breeding birds of woodland, farmland, water and wetlands and all-species in the UK. 

The breeding farmland bird index continued to fall and has declined by more than half between 1970 and 2017 in the UK. Whilst most of these declines occurred in the late 1970s and early 1980s, there was a short-term decline of 7% since 2011. Farmland specialists showed the most prominent declines; for example, Corn Bunting, Grey Partridge, Turtle Dove and Tree Sparrow all declined by at least 90% since 1970. Grey Partridge and Turtle Dove also declined strongly in the short-term, but there was no change for Corn Bunting or Tree Sparrow during this time. Conversely, some farmland specialists (e.g. Stock Dove and Goldfinch) have more than doubled in the long-term. This illustrates that responses to pressures are likely to vary between species. 

Changes in the abundance of  farmland birds 1970 to 2017 in the UK.

Grey Partridge

The breeding woodland bird index for the UK has declined by 25% between 1970 and 2017, and 5% over the recent short-term period. These declines are greater than documented previously, driven by the declining numbers of woodland specialists; down 46% since 1970. Generalist woodland species, typically those that also breed in gardens or wooded areas of farmland, have increased overall, by 14%. Woodland species such as Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, Spotted Flycatcher and Willow Tit have shown the most serious declines (more than 80%) since 1970, whilst numbers of Long-tailed Tit, Blackcap and Nuthatch have almost doubled, and the Great-spotted Woodpecker is three times as abundant as it was several decades ago. 

Changes in the abundance of woodland birds between 1970 and 2017 in the UK. 

The breeding water and wetland bird index for the UK fell by 6% between 1975 and 2017, but over the short-term increased slightly by 3%. Over the long-term, species associated with slow-flowing and standing water, and with reed beds, fared better than those associated with fast-flowing water or with wet grasslands. Lapwing, Redshank, Snipe and Common Sandpiper showed the strongest declines over the long-term, athough Snipe has shown a recovery of 27% in the recent short-term period. 

The abundance of breeding water and wetland birds between 1975 and 2017 in the UK. 

Snipe

Ringed Plover

The breeding seabird index was not updated this year due to a shift of effort by the JNCC Seabird Monitoring team towards the ongoing Seabird Census. In the UK, the seabird index declined by 22% between 1986 and 2015. Declines began in the mid-2000s; and more recently, between 2009 and 2014 there was a 14% decline in the indicator, driven largely by large declines for Arctic Skua and Black-legged Kittiwake. The wintering waterbird index was 106% higher than in 1975/1976 in the UK. The index peaked in the late 1990s, and has declined since; by 4% between 2010/2011 and 2015/2016. Some wintering waterbirds have increased markedly over the long-term, including Gadwall, Whooper Swan, Avocet and Black-tailed Godwit. Conversely, White-fronted Goose, Eider, Ringed Plover and Dunlin all declined.  

The abundance of wintering waterbirds between 1975 /76 and 2016/17 in the UK.   

Source -  BTO Science Monitoring Bird Populations.

Linking today with  Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday Blogspot.

Poor Old Oyk

There came something of a surprise with a recent email from the BTO. 

The message concerned an Oystercatcher found dead by a member of the public at our ringing site near Oakenclough on 18th April 2018. The bombshell was the fact that our Oystercatcher had died at the grand old age of 22 years, 7990 days after being ringed at the same place on 2nd June 1996. 

This is a site where a number of pairs Oystercatchers breed every year, an inland and upland location with a reservoir where the Oystercatchers nest on the rocky shores dependent upon water levels but also in adjacent fields. Even my memory of ringing occasions doesn't stretch back 22 years so I looked up the original ringing data on our Fylde Ringing Group database and there it was. Ring number FR86494, ringed as a chick, one of two youngsters on 2 June 1996. 

IPMR data

I searched my memory bank recalled the day as an occasion when three of us (Gary, Bob and me) called in at Oakenclough to ring a nest of three Yellowhammer chicks and 5 Willow Warbler chicks found a week or so earlier. 

As we motored out of the site at the entrance we spotted a pair adult Oystercatchers with two chicks so stopped to complete a successful excursion with a little bonus. Sadly, the Yellowhammers were the last ones ringed at the site as it became very overgrown with rhododendron resulting in the area becoming unsuitable for a number of species. 

Oystercatcher chick

Oystercatcher 

Although 22 years is a good age, it’s not quite the longevity record for Oystercatchers. The oldest known Oystercatcher was ringed as a chick in 1970 and later found in 2010, on the same beach in Cumbria, not too many miles from Lancashire. At that time, it was already 40 years, one month and 2 days old. 

Despite the known longevity of the species Oystercatchers are a vulnerable and Amber-listed in the UK.  From the BTO - Breeding Bird Surveys since 1994, which include birds in a broader range of locations and habitats, show strong increase in England but a significant, moderate decline in Scotland. The increase in nest failure rates during the 27-day egg stage probably results from the spread of the species into less favourable habitats, where nest losses through predation or trampling may be more likely. There has been widespread moderate decline across Europe since 1980. 

There is a moral to this story. It is that where possible, everyone should always look at dead birds and examine the legs as there may be a ring, British Museum/BTO or a foreign scheme. High quality metal rings are designed to be long lasting so that the inscription does not easily wear and may be legible for the lifespan of the bird and longer. The information resulting from finding and reporting a ringed bird, dead or alive is very valuable to science.

British Museum bird ring

Linking today to Eileens' Blog.

Little But Not Often

Some news from Europe about the Little Owl, Athene noctua, sýček obecný, recently chosen by the Czech Society for Ornithology as their “Bird of the Year”. 

Though common in Europe, Northern Africa, parts of the Middle East and Asia, population numbers of the owl fell significantly over the last half century in the Czech Republic, as birds disappeared from farmland areas; as a result the Little Owl is on their endangered list. 

The Czech Society for Ornithology wants to make the public aware of the bird’s plight and that population numbers of the once widespread species fell dramatically over recent decades. 

Little Owl

The society’s Martin Šálek: “We chose the Little Owl because this is an owl which not long ago was very common and widespread. We wanted to reveal the plight of the bird and other animals which live in the vicinity of arable land, where bird and other population levels have dropped. 

“At the beginning of the last century the Little Owl was widespread; today it is on the edge of extinction. We wanted people to know about the danger.” 

Little Owl

According to Mr Šálek, there used to be tens of thousands of breeding pairs but by the 1970s the numbers had dropped around just 2,000. 

“At present the population is tiny: we have counted around 130 nesting pairs. They are limited to small areas of land around the country; whereas 30 years ago the owl was a common sight for our grandparents, now they are only located in isolated areas or “islands” of land primarily in the regions of Ústí, Central Bohemia and South Moravia.” 

One question is whether there are steps the public can take to help; the Czech Society for Ornithology’s Martin Šálek points out even simple steps can make a difference. “Our Little Owls have retreated from farmland into inhabited areas where they face numerous dangers. We studied where most of the Little Owls died and learned that some 40 percent died in so-called technical ‘traps’. These include barrels of water, or upright pipes that are not capped. 

“The owls are curious by nature and go inside to have a look and get stuck and can’t get out. For that reason, it would be good if all small cottage or garden colony owners who have rain barrels remember to but a float inside, so the bird can climb up and escape.Another thing each of us can do is to help the Little Owl is leave a patch of uncut grass on our property, so insects like butterflies which are part of the bird’s diet can remain and hide. A well-trimmed English lawn is not beneficial. If you leave 20 percent uncut, that can help.” 

Little Owl

This account from Czechoslovakia mirrors the story of the UK population of Little Owls. The BTO’s Common Bird Census/Breeding Bird Surveys trend for Little Owl in the UK shows very wide variation, but a downturn in recent decades suggests that a rapid decline lies behind the observed fluctuations. 

A figure of c. 7,000 pairs from the BTO/Hawk & Owl Trust's Project Barn Owl (Toms et al. 2000) was the first replicable population estimate for Little Owls in the UK. An independent BBS estimate is for c5,700 pairs in 2009, since when a substantial further decrease has occurred. 

Little Owl

The primary drivers for this rapid decline are thought to be decreased juvenile survival and the effects of agricultural intensification. 

Little Owl - British Trust for Ornithology

My own observations over the past 35 years in this part of Lancashire have seen the once very, very common Little Owl become something of a scarcity.  Once regular sites are now abandoned with few localities where the species may be found on a regular basis. 

The Little Owl is now so scarce, so infrequent that it is something of target bird for listers, twitchers and toggers at all times of the year. Where breeding localities are known by fieldworkers concerned for the species’ welfare, the locale has to be kept hush-hush so as not to subject the birds to constant and often unsympathetic attention. 

Little Owls

I understand that the BTO are looking to undertake a new national survey of the Little Owl quite soon. The way things look at the moment this could lead to the Little Owl being identified as at least Red-listed, if not endangered. Let’s hope not. 

Linking this post to World Bird Wednesday, Anni's Birding Blog and Eileen's Saturday Blog.