Record participation finds half of our commonest birds are declining

The highest ever number of participants contributed to the Breeding Bird Survey in Wales last year, the annual stocktake of birds that are widespread across the country. Birds in 359 1-km squares were counted by 253 volunteers, 20% of whom had not taken part previously. It is welcome news, as it enables the fortunes of 60 of the most abundant species to be tracked in Wales. They will visit their adopted squares again in the coming weeks for the 2026 count.

The results from 2025, published today by the British Trust for Ornithology, RSPB and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, show that over the 29 years of the scheme, 30 species have increased and 29 declined; the parlous state of Redpoll as a breeding bird means that there is no longer sufficient data to generate a trend.

Canada Goose, Red Kite and Stonechat were among the biggest winners, whereas Swift, Yellowhammer and Curlew have seen the greatest declines, all by around 75% since 1995. The report highlights that Yellowhammers are becoming so scarce in Wales that they risk falling out of the BBS monitoring system. They went locally extinct in Anglesey in the last decade and are now found in just a handful of places in Gwynedd. The Clwydian Hills appear to retain the strongest population in North Wales, but for how long? The BBS report highlights the importance of the Sustainable Farming Scheme in stemming the decline in farmland birds such as Yellowhammer.

The results flag stark differences in trends between the UK countries. Dunnock and Nuthatch numbers are stable in Wales in contrast to significant declines in England over the last 10 years, and while House Sparrows have declined by one-third in England since 1995, they increased markedly in Wales until 2023 but have fallen in two successive years. You can read the latest BBS report and explore the results on the BTO website.