The impact of changing habitat availability on population trends of woodland birds associated with early successional plantation woodland

Capsule Trends in young woodland availability influenced population trends and abundance of Tree Pipit and Lesser Redpoll, but not 10-km square occupancy. Aims To investigate whether changes in availability of young woodland could have driven population change, and trends in abundance and occupancy, of declining Tree Pipit and Lesser Redpoll populations in Britain. Methods Modelling approaches used annual population indices and woodland planting statistics. Abundance and occupancy change between two bird atlases were examined in relation to changes in woodland availability from two woodland inventories. Results English declines were strongly associated with decreases in young coniferous woodland availability and less strongly with increases in young broadleaved woodland. Abundance was related to the area of young woodland in corresponding 10-km squares. Young woodland availability declined between forest inventories and species occupancy maintained in 10-km squares with more young woodland; however squares that showed retention or increases in occupancy showed higher reductions in woodland. Conclusion We suggest declining availability of young coniferous woodland contributed to Tree Pipit and Lesser Redpoll population trends in England. Although likely to be the case in Scotland and Wales, the lack of sufficient temporal data inhibited our ability to test this properly. This work suggests that woodland availability was not the primary driver of Tree Pipit or Lesser Redpoll population trends.