European Indicators

Accompanying text of the update and a set of main Wild Bird Indices for Europe and the EU, which are freely available for download as Excel sheets, are presented here.

Since January 2006, the European Commission has supported the production of European bird indicators.

If you wish to use the PECBMS outputs, we recommend reading the rules stated in the Data Access And Co-authorship Policy.

In 2024, we decided to change PECBMS terminology in some terms as follows:
The updated names of the PECBMS indicators align with official CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity) terms used by BirdLife, the European Commission, and national and international policies. We also use the term ‘indicator’, but this applies to all the indicators we present in general.

Wild Bird Indices (so far, Common bird indicators)
All Bird Index (so far, All common birds)
Farmland Bird Index (so far, Common farmland birds)
Forest Bird Index (so far, Common forest birds)

Wild Bird Indices, Europe

Indicator	Region	Time period	No. of species	Trend (%)^a)
All Bird Index	Europe	1980-2023	168	-18
Farmland Bird Index	Europe	1980-2023	39	-60
Forest Bird Index	Europe	1980-2023	34	-8

Wild Bird Indices, EU

Indicator	Region	Time period	No. of species	Trend (%)^a)
All Bird Index	EU	1980-2023	168	-17
Farmland Bird Index	EU	1980-2023	39	-56
Forest Bird Index	EU	1980-2023	34	-5
Farmland Bird Index	New EU	1982-2023	29	-51
Farmland Bird Index	Old EU	1980-2023	39	-53

Regional Wild Bird Indices

Indicator	Region	Time period	No. of species	Trend (%)^a)
Farmland Bird Index	Central & East Europe	1982-2023	23	-33
Forest Bird Index	Central & East Europe	1982-2023	27	-14
Farmland Bird Index	North Europe	1980-2023	14	-42
Forest Bird Index	North Europe	1980-2023	24	-17
Farmland Bird Index	South Europe	1989-2023	37	-47
Forest Bird Index	South Europe	1989-2023	25	-32
Farmland Bird Index	West Europe	1980-2023	22	-52
Forest Bird Index	West Europe	1980-2023	29	5