New Dutch Breeding Bird Report – Numbers and trends of Dutch breeding birds

The annual results of the Dutch Breeding Bird monitoring coordinated by Sovon (Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology) were published in late July. This report presents an overview of the breeding population trends of 199 species, both common, rare and colonial breeding birds, in The Netherlands up to and including 2022. The main aim of the national monitoring is to provide input for international directives, treaties, headline indicators and national conservation and management programs. Most of the data were collected by volunteers throughout the country. Territory mapping is the basic fieldwork method, supplemented with point counts in urban areas and farmland. Among the species that are doing well are some that only rather recently established themselves in the Netherlands, such as Middle Spotted Woodpecker** and Cetti’s Warbler. Other species with relatively good numbers were Eurasian Bittern and Red-necked Grebe. Many farmland bird species continued to decline in 2022; Black-tailed Godwit, Ruff, Curlew, Redshank, Oystercatcher, and Eurasian Tree Sparrow reached their lowest population level since the start of the counts in 1984.

In the long term (from 1990 onwards), 43% of the species showed a downward trend, while there was an increase in 51% of the species. The remaining 6% of species were stable or uncertain. In the short term, from 2011 to 2022, 26% of the species showed a decrease and 47% an increase. 17% remained stable, and the short-term trend of 10% of the species was uncertain. Most woodland birds are increasing, profiting from forest maturation and more natural management of forests. Most marshland species have also increased, continuing their return from the ‘70s and ‘80s winter droughts in the Sahel and profiting from marshland rehabilitation.

Download (pdf) with an English summary on p. 10-11: https://pub.sovon.nl/pub/publicatie/21399

** A paper describing the colonisation of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker in the Netherlands, from 1 to 2,000 breeding pairs between 1995 and 2020, can be found here https://stats.sovon.nl/pub/publicatie/21356 (in Dutch, but with English summary and captions of graphs and tables)