The Lincolnshire Bird Club

Unfortunately, the present ongoing, depressing, windy and wet (even cold) summer will adversely affect the foraging success and energy-efficiency of both adult and independent juvenile Spotted Flycatchers. Further, with regard to any second broods, young birds may well have starved in the nest. Declines in the numbers of young birds surviving to fledging, and declines in immediate post-fledging survival, will certainly add to the known factors (such as reduced predator control) causing the documented large-scale decline in Spotted Flycatcher numbers over the past years - in fact, by about 80% over the past three or four decades.

The Spotted Flycatcher is now a species of major conservation concern. It is a Red-listed species in the UK as well as the subject of a UK Biodiversity Action Plan ( UK BAP 2010). Long gone are the days when 'birdwatchers', such as the brother of the former Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, could record (in the 1940s) some 20 nests on one wall of the ancestral home in the Borders.( BOOK : 'The Birdman'.....1977... Henry Douglas-Home). Relatively new factors along migration routes and on the wintering grounds in Africa may also well affect the remarkable decline. After all, the Spotted Flycatcher only spends about one third of the year (c. mid-May - mid-September) in the UK. On the other hand, we can comfort ourselves in realising that the Spotted Flycatcher is not a RARE bird in the UK but a relatively SCARCE one. Even so, there are an estimated 35,000 or so UK breeding territories.

UK statistics apart, it would be interesting to know just how many LINCOLNSHIRE Bird Club members have had at least 10 Spotted Flycatcher separate sightings so far this year ( sightings of 'different' birds with eg."2 adults and 3 juveniles" counting as one sighting). Some active local birders I've spoken to, have recorded less than 5.

Freddy