RSPB report finds migratory birds to the UK in decline

‘On their epic journeys across the Mediterranean, many birds are also shot and caught in nets – an estimated two to four million turtle doves are killed in southern European countries each year’

The Turtle Dove is one of the only species that can be hunted legally in the spring in Malta under a derogation from the EU's Birds Directive.
The Turtle Dove is one of the only species that can be hunted legally in the spring in Malta under a derogation from the EU's Birds Directive.

Birds that make the great journey between northern Europe and Africa are declining in number, conservationists warn in the annual State of the UK’s Birds report by the RSPB and seven other nature organisations.

 It is the first time the report has grouped the health of birds by their migration strategies.

In the UK, birds have lost habitat to farmland and housing. Nightingales and other species are under threat from rising deer numbers, as the deer browse on young woodland.

“But on their epic journeys across the Mediterranean, many birds are also shot and caught in nets – an estimated two to four million turtle doves are killed in southern European countries each year, contributing to the 95% decline in turtle dove populations since 1970,” the Guardian reports.

Malta, now dubbed a ‘hotspot’ for illegal bird hunting, was the focus of a campaign by birders including BBC broadcaster Chris Packham in May, and the recent nomination Karmenu Vella as the EU’s new environment commissioner sparked fresh controversy over the country’s wildlife crime record.

Nearly half of the 29 species of so-called summer migrants, who appear in the UK in spring to breed before returning in the autumn, show long-term population declines.

Elsewhere in Africa, the report’s authors say birds are losing habitat as forests are cleared for fuel and to make way for farming, and wetland ecosystems are being drained and dammed.

“In the humid zone, we know there is large scale environmental change occurring, due to human requirements for growing food. There is a lot of change, particularly on irrigation for crops. Lots of habitats are being changed or degraded,” said Daniel Hayhow, a conservation scientist at the RSPB.

The conservationists say the length of the birds’ journeys makes it hard to pinpoint at which point in the cycle the greatest stresses are being brought to bear.

Martin Harper, the RSPB’s conservation director, said: “Their nomadic lifestyle, requiring sites and resources spread over vast distances across the globe, makes identifying and understanding the causes of decline extremely complex. The problems may be in the UK or in West Africa, or indeed on migration in between the two.”

Climate change is also adding to the migrants’ problems, creating a ‘phenological mismatch’ where warming temperatures mean the caterpillars that birds feed on are not out in high numbers at the right time. However, the report says some declining species, such as wood warblers, are adapting by switching to other food such as spiders and flying insects.

Not all of the 29 summer migrants are doing so badly. Those that winter north of the Sahara, such as blackcaps and chiffchaffs, have seen substantial increases since the mid-1980s. But overall, the report shows, populations of migrants are doing much worse than species which don’t migrate and are comparatively stable in number.