Today, State of UK Birds 2016 is published. It's a fabulous publication collated by a partnership of government bodies and charities based on data collected by many thousands of volunteers who give their time for free.
Through these assessments, we work out changes in bird populations to help us assess which species are most in need of conservation and whether existing programmes are working.
As ever, there is good news (for species which have been subject to major species recovery programmes such as bittern, cirl bunting, golden eagle, nightjar and woodlark) and bad news (especially for upland species such as curlew, summer migrants such as nightingale and seabirds such as puffin - which is why the RSPB is now refocusing our species recovery effort on these three groups).
The report also reminds us of our responsibilities for wildlife including on UK Overseas Territories and how albatrosses and St Helena plovers have benefited from conservation action.
Having just visited two UK Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, I've been able to see how targeted conservation action can tackle some of the threats that these special places are facing. The work (supported by Defra's Darwin Plus fund) we are doing to control rats on Turks and Caicos will not only benefit the endemic rock iguana but also ground-nesting bird species such as the Antillean nighthawk (a close relative of the European nightjar).
While these places may not have the network of volunteers that provide the data in the UK, the passion and dedication to improve the natural world is as high in the Caribbean as it is in the UK and the RSPB will continue to do what we can to help our local partners.
So a big thank you to all of you that provided data for the report or helped deliver the conservation successes. If you feel motivated to get involved, please do think about taking part in the surveys listed at the back of the report or join conservation organisations both in the UK and on our Overseas Territories.
'Our' birds need all the help they can get.
The Antillean Nighthawk on Little Water Cay in the Turks and Caicos is vulnerable to predation by non-native invasive rats (photo by Elizabeth Radford)
Nightjar roosting at RSPB HQ (Andy Hay, rspb-images.com). This is a species whose conservation status has moved from red to amber.
I have ordered my copy today.
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