Please, help save spotted flycatcher
Please, help save spotted flycatcher
The evenings are getting lighter and the noise of birds
will again become a familiar sound. But youre less
likely to hear one of our distinct-sounding feathered
friends than a few years ago. Michael Edwards reports
SOME of the most characteristic sounds of summer are provided by birdsong. But the spotted flycatcher is best known for its feeding method of ambushing passing insects from a favourite perch and catching them with a loud snap of its beak which is audible from several metres.
Once often seen in the proximity of gardens and parks, it has disappeared from many of its previous haunts, as Humphrey Crick of the British Trust for Ornithologys (BTO) Demography Unit, explains.
"The decline of the spotted flycatcher was manifest in the surveys carried out by our members. Fewer territories were located on Common Birds Census sites than a decade ago and it is the only migrant to southern Africa which, while still relatively common, shows such a recent decline."
This change is so severe that the bird is now red-listed as a species of conservation concern, yet the reasons for its changing fortunes are little known.
The spotted flycatcher does not share obvious characteristics with other species of conservation concern. Unlike the seed-eating birds whose declines have been well-documented, the spotted flycatcher favours woodland rather than farmland, though it isnt averse to making its nest in your garden. For these reasons, the BTO has recently undertaken research intended to identify those stages of the flycatchers life at which the critical changes may have been taking place.
* Declining
Research suggests a population level in the late 1990s only about one-quarter of that in the early 1970s. However, there was no evidence that the pattern of this decline has differed between different regions of the country, between farmland and woodland, or between farmland habitats under different agricultural practices. This suggests that a broad-scale factor is implicated in the population crash, which was particularly steep in the late 1980s.
If you have a pair of flycatchers this summer, the BTO would like to know about it. For a nest record starter pack, please send an A4 sae to Humphrey Crick, BTO, the Nunery, Thetford, Norfolk IP24 2PU or E-mail humphrey.crick@bto.org.uk