PanEuropean Common Bird
Monitoring Scheme
Contacts

Species trends

Accompanying text of the update and indices and trends for 170 European bird species are freely available for download in Excel sheets here.

Since January 2006, the production of European species trends has been supported by the European Commission.

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

In one graph
Confidence limits may be shown only if the option All data in one graph is set to no.

Passer domesticus (House Sparrow )

Moderate decline (explanation)

Population index (%) 1980 - 2023, Europe

Countries

Source of the data: EBCC/BirdLife/RSPB/CSO

Species Long-term Trend (%)a) Long-term Slope (SE)b) Ten-year Trend (%)a) Ten-year Slope (SE)b) Habitat
-38 0.9901 (0.0018) -8 0.9979 (0.0022) other

Trend classification

The multiplicative overall slope estimate in TRIM is converted into one of the following categories. The category depends on the overall slope as well as its 95% confidence interval (= slope +/- 1.96 times the standard error of the slope).

  • Strong increase – increase significantly more than 5% per year (5% would mean a doubling in abundance within 15 years). Criterion: lower limit of confidence interval > 1.05.
  • Moderate increase – a significant increase, but not significantly more than 5% per year. Criterion: 1.00 < lower limit of confidence interval < 1.05.
  • Stable – no significant increase or decline and the most probable trends are less than 5% per year. Criterion: confidence interval encloses 1.00 but lower limit > 0.95 and upper limit < 1.05.
  • Uncertain – no significant increase or decline, and unlikely trends are less than 5% per year. Criterion: confidence interval encloses 1.00 but lower limit < 0.95 or upper limit > 1.05.
  • Moderate decline – significant decline, but not significantly more than 5% per year. Criterion: 0.95 < upper limit of confidence interval < 1.00.
  • Steep decline – decline significantly more than 5% per year (5% would mean a halving in abundance within 15 years). Criterion: upper limit of confidence interval < 0.95.

a) Change (in %) in an index value between the first and the last year of a time period. Long-term trend (%) is calculated over the period 1980–2023 unless specified differently in the species notes (upper index 1–14 by the species names in the table). The ten-year trend (%) is calculated over the period of the last ten years (2014–2023).

b) The multiplicative trend over a time period considered, reflects the average percentage change per year. If the slope value is 1, there is no trend. If > 1, there is a positive trend, if < 1, the trend is negative. For instance, 1.08 means an 8% increase per year, 0.93 means a 7% decline per year. Slope standard errors (SE) are in parenthesis. The long-term slope is calculated over the period 1980–2023 unless specified differently in the species notes (upper index 1–14 by the species names in the table). The ten-year slope is calculated over the period of the last ten years (2014–2023).

1) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1981−2023.
2) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1982−2023.
3) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1984−2023.
4) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1988−2023.
5) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1989−2023.
6) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1990−2023.
7) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1991−2023.
8) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1996−2023.
9) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1998−2023.
10) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 1999−2023.
11) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 2000−2023.
12) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 2002−2023.
13) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 2005−2023.
14) Data for Long-term Trend and Long-term Slope available over the period 2006−2023.