Familiar birds added to revised UK Red List

House martin, swift, greenfinch and Bewick’s swan are given status of “highest conservation concern”

- Jo Price

The latest assessment of the status of the UK’s regularly-occurring bird species, Birds of Conservation Concern 5, reveals more than one in four species are in serious trouble.

Compiled by a coalition of the UK’s leading bird conservation and monitoring organizations, the report assessed each species against a set of objective criteria and assigned it to a Green, Amber or Red List – indicating an increasing level of conservation concern.