Over the past five years, all bird species have faced population decline after suffering from habitat loss, pesticide use, climate breakdown and bird flu. Overall, bird species have declined in number UK-wide by 2% and in England by 7% in the five years since 2018.
Faring the worst are farmland birds, which have declined in number severely – by about 61% over the long term (since 1970) and 9% in the short term (the five years 2018-2023) – and woodland birds, whose numbers have fallen by about 35% over the long term and 10% in the short term.
Some farmland birds have fared particularly badly. The turtle dove has decreased in number by 54% in the UK over the past five years. Numbers of the tree sparrow also continue to decline sharply, by 25% UK-wide and 35% in England over that period.
The figures could be far worse than shown as they do not take into account the loss of seabirds from bird flu, which ripped through populations from 2022.