Birds of Conservation Concern 5

'Birds of Conservation Concern 5' is a list compiled by a coalition of the UK’s leading bird conservation and monitoring organisations roughly once every five years. The latest has just been published and lists seventy of Britain's birds as on the Red list, birds about whose future we should be very worried. Since the last review in 2015, the length of the Red list has grown by three; 11 species have been added and six - including the sea eagle and the song thrush - have been moved to the Amber list. The Red list is now almost double the length it was in 1996.

Some of the species on the Red list aren't unexpected. We've known, for example, that the swift, cuckoo, starling, greenfinch, redpoll, linnet and even the house martin have become increasingly scarce but we were shocked to find that other, once 'common' birds are now Red listed. These include the long-tailed duck (above), ringed plover, curlew, skylark and yellowhammer, all of which we've seen recently, at least in small numbers, round Golspie.

We don't monitor our garden birds in a scientific way but have noticed some alarming trends. Greenfinches, which we saw not infrequently at our feeders a year ago, have disappeared. The number of house sparrows has, at a guess, halved - a year ago we were anxious to be rid of the sparrow hoard that kept the other birds from the feeders but now we're pleased to see the small groups that visit us.

It's difficult to know what we can do, in our small way, to help. We've stepped up the amount of food that goes out each day to the feeders, and are using more of the high-energy foods such a sunflower seeds and fat balls.

A summary of the Red and Amber lists is here.