Which Species Will Be the Next to Breed in the UK? (1 Viewer)

[Paul Chapman]

Why would a Rare Breeding Birds Panel accept records for species if they didn't think they might breed?

Which species are you talking about? The vast majority are either those that have bred or hybridised or summered or sung?

List of species currently reported on by RBBP

List of (native) species monitored by the RBBP From the table below you can see the full list of native species currently on the RBBP List. We show the years the species has been on our list and the year the species was first reported in one of our annual reports (which began in 1973). Note

rbbp.org.uk

All the best

Paul

 

[Farnboro John]

Why would a Rare Breeding Birds Panel accept records for species if they didn't think they might breed?

Past reports include e.g. single Red-necked Grebe summering. One bird cannot breed and shouldn't constitute a record for RBBP. Mind you without such fare their reports would be thin.

John

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Which species are you talking about? The vast majority are either those that have bred or hybridised or summered or sung?

List of species currently reported on by RBBP

List of (native) species monitored by the RBBP From the table below you can see the full list of native species currently on the RBBP List. We show the years the species has been on our list and the year the species was first reported in one of our annual reports (which began in 1973). Note

rbbp.org.uk

All the best

Paul

We are making the same point Paul.

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Past reports include e.g. single Red-necked Grebe summering. One bird cannot breed and shouldn't constitute a record for RBBP. Mind you without such fare their reports would be thin.

John

They are only collecting those records because the species is a potential breeder. Nowhere have I said one bird can breed.

 

[Paul Chapman]

We are making the same point Paul.

Apologies. My error. I meant to quote Andy's point!

All the best

Paul

 

[Farnboro John]

They are only collecting those records because the species is a potential breeder. Nowhere have I said one bird can breed.

Apologies, that was not my meaning. It is rather my contention that the RBBP casts its net too widely and is for that reason a poor guide to changes in the breeding bird landscape.

John

 

[Paul Chapman]

Apologies, that was not my meaning. It is rather my contention that the RBBP casts its net too widely and is for that reason a poor guide to changes in the breeding bird landscape.

John

I understand the wide casting of the net. Lots of stories of a single bird being seen and then surprisingly, a family party appears some time later! But I definitely agree that it is a poor guide. More an early warning system.

It would be really interesting to see a full analysis of the 170 species. I recollect most circumstances but it would take some time to put flesh on the bones of those recollections!

All the best

Paul

 

[Andy Lakin]

Apologies. My error. I meant to quote Andy's point!

All the best

Paul

I simply meant that there are some species on the list, Killdeer, Pallid Swift, Slender Billed Gull etc that would be seriously big news if they bred over here. Obviously they are very optimistic but the RBBP must put a lot of effort in to researching these things. They must have a serious workload, as people have said it is a nightmare trying to work out which species have successfully bred and not just been in an appropriate habitat at the right time of year.
Cheers
Andy

 

[Paul Chapman]

I simply meant that there are some species on the list, Killdeer, Pallid Swift, Slender Billed Gull etc that would be seriously big news if they bred over here. Obviously they are very optimistic but the RBBP must put a lot of effort in to researching these things. They must have a serious workload, as people have said it is a nightmare trying to work out which species have successfully bred and not just been in an appropriate habitat at the right time of year.
Cheers
Andy

They added them because they have turned up not because they have assessed breeding habitat or potential eg the summering Shetland Killdeer.

All the best

Paul

 

[zwellers]

Other than spotted sandpiper, purple heron and gull billed tern are they any other species that have definitely only ever bred once in the uk?

 

[Stephen Dunstan]

Other than spotted sandpiper, purple heron and gull billed tern are they any other species that have definitely only ever bred once in the uk?

At the risk of being pedantic we'd have no way of knowing. We don't know that those three species have definitely only ever bred once.

 

[Phil Andrews]

Other than spotted sandpiper, purple heron and gull billed tern are they any other species that have definitely only ever bred once in the uk?

Night Heron (Somerset, 2017)?

The/a pair of GBT were present the summer before the breeding at Abberton Reservoir in 1950.

 

[Southern Viking]

Surprised Serin haven't been mentioned, or is that because they're an expected colonist?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Surprised Serin haven't been mentioned, or is that because they're an expected colonist?

They were an annual breeder seen by many before losing their foothold.

All the best

Paul

 

[Southern Viking]

They were an annual breeder seen by many before losing their foothold.

All the best

Paul

Fair enough - that would explain it!

 

[Paul Chapman]

Fair enough - that would explain it!

I missed the Starcross birds just at the end of their tenure and it was a bogey bird of mine for a few years:-

https://ebird.org/checklist/S130608503

All the best

Paul

 

[Larry Sweetland]

I missed the Starcross birds just at the end of their tenure and it was a bogey bird of mine for a few years:-

https://ebird.org/checklist/S130608503

All the best

Paul

Same here! I remember making the trip to Starcross mental hospital a couple of times in a mini with a car load of other teens from the southeast, only to dip out

 

[John Cantelo]

Since they've both expanded their range westwards into Scandinavia then, despite their rarity, I think you can't entirely discount the possibility of Blyth's Reed Warbler or, to a lesser degree, River Warbler breeding here. Despite a perhaps less vigorous westward push, Thrush Nightingale could conceivably do so. Sadly, it seems too much to hope that Red-flanked Bluetail (another species expanding westwards) might do so. However, breeding as a one-off/occasional and successfully colonising the UK are very different matters.

 

[Paul Chapman]

Since they've both expanded their range westwards into Scandinavia then, despite their rarity, I think you can't entirely discount the possibility of Blyth's Reed Warbler or, to a lesser degree, River Warbler breeding here. Despite a perhaps less vigorous westward push, Thrush Nightingale could conceivably do so. Sadly, it seems too much to hope that Red-flanked Bluetail (another species expanding westwards) might do so. However, breeding as a one-off/occasional and successfully colonising the UK are very different matters.

Difficult to argue with that & I would agree with the order of probability as well...

All the best

Paul

 

[kb57]

With climate change, I would be inclined to look at resident, but fairly mobile species from SW Europe as possible candidates, as their home range heats up and mild winters on the NW European seaboard increase the possibility of survival. The spread of Cetti's warbler and (from a very restricted range) Dartford warbler are examples in terms of similar climatic tolerance.
I realise I'm entering the realm of potential colonists here, but Zitting Cisticola and Sardinian warbler both seem possible, together with any southern European heron / egret / ibis species that hasn't already bred in Britain (if any are still yet to breed?). They're both common in their home range, so I suppose the question is whether the Channel would prove an insurmountable obstacle, especially for resident species like these, as it perhaps inexplicably does for migratory species like bluethroat and melodious warbler.