Defra's annual wild bird statistics, updated on 13 October, put the UK's farmland specialists 75% below their 1970 level, three times the fall for farmland generalists. The headline index for all breeding birds is down only 19%, because common species have masked the losses.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) published its yearly update of the UK wild bird indicators on 13 October, now running to 2025.1 The widest measure, covering 132 breeding species, is down 19% since 1970. That looks moderate. The habitat indicators beneath it are not. The indices are compiled by the British Trust for Ornithology, the RSPB and the Joint Nature Conservation Committee from volunteer surveys.2
Farmland birds are down 63%, and seabirds are down 52% since their 1986 baseline. Woodland birds are down about a third. Wetland birds are down 9% since 1975, a change the statisticians do not count as significant.1
Defra splits the farmland, woodland and upland indicators into generalist species, which cope with many habitats, and specialists, which depend on one. On farmland the specialists are down 75%. The generalists are down 25%, a third as much.1
Within farmland, turtle dove, tree sparrow, grey partridge, corn bunting and starling are each down more than 85%. Woodpigeon and jackdaw have more than doubled.1 One reading is that a few thriving common birds offset many collapsing rare ones in the all-species index; Defra's page does not test this.
Over the five years to 2025, seabirds fell 22% and farmland birds 12%, both significant. Upland birds fell 6%, also significant. The fall for all breeding birds (5%), wetland birds (4%) and woodland birds (1%) is within what Defra treats as noise.1
One group is up: wintering waterbirds are 88% above their 1975-76 level, though that series has been flat in recent years.1
The indices show relative change, not a count of birds, so they cannot say how many remain. The statistics describe what has happened to populations, not why. Defra's page lists no cause for the generalist-specialist gap, and this piece does not claim one. The 2025 values are the first estimates and can be revised when the next year is added.