Birds of Conservation Concern 5, commonly known as the Red List for Birds was published in December 2021. It is the 4th review of the status of birds in the UK, Channel Islands, and Isle of Man, and supersedes the previous assessment carried out in 2015.

245 species of breeding, passage, or wintering birds in the UK were assessed on criteria including conservation status at global and European levels, and, within the UK, historical decline, trends in population and range, rarity, localised distribution, and international importance.

For a bird to be put on the Red List it must satisfy one of the following criteria:

Globally threatened.
Historical population decline in the UK between 1800 and 1995.
At least a 50% decline in the UK breeding population over the last 25 years.
At least 50% contraction of UK breeding range over the last 25 years.

Some key highlights

70 species, or 29% of those assessed are now on the Red List, up from 67 species in 2015, and 36 species in 1996, when the first review took place.

The golden oriole which was previously on the Red List has not bred in the UK since 2009 and is now officially lost as a breeding bird joining eight other species including the previously widespread wryneck.

There has been no improvement in the status of farmland and upland birds with more species moved to the Red List

There is concern over the status of wintering wildfowl and wetland birds with Bewick’s swan, smew, and dunlin joining the Red List.

The number of long-distance migrants on the Red List, particularly those that spend the winter in the humid tropics of sub-Saharan Africa continues to grow.

Nine of the UK’s birds are threatened with global extinction including the kittiwake and Leach’s storm-petrel.