Abstract

This report covers records of rare, non-native birds breeding in the UK during the six years 2015–20. A total of 22 species were reported as showing signs of breeding and 18 of these were confirmed breeding. Perhaps surprisingly, only one species, Red-crested Pochard Netta rufina, appears to be increasing, whereas eight species appear to have declined. Ruddy Duck Oxyura jamaicensis and Monk Parakeet Myiopsitta monachus are nearly extinct in the UK due to government-led control programmes, and the last male Lady Amherst’s Pheasant Chrysolophus amherstiae died in 2016, apparently ending the 120-year history of this species breeding in the UK.IntroductionThis is the 12th report by the Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP) summarising the breeding occurrence of non-native species in the UK. It includes reports of 22 rare, non-native species, as well as summaries on the status of the eight commoner species and a summary of species previously reported upon by the RBBP but which did not occur in the current reporting period (Appendix 1). To match other national reporting schemes, such as the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey (Heywood et al. 2023), the geographical scope of the report includes the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands (as well as Britain and Northern Ireland), but the term ‘United Kingdom’ is used as a shorthand reference. Since 1996, the RBBP has collated records of confirmed or potential breeding by non-native species for which the total number of breeding pairs each year is fewer than 300. Initially, reports on rare non-native breeding birds were produced annually, in the same way as for the separate reports on native species. However, this moved to a three-year cycle from 2003 onwards (Holling et al. 2007), and now, following the last report covering 2012–14 (Holling et al. 2017), we present a summary for the six years from 2015 to 2020. This longer period means that we are reporting on the same periodicity as is used for compiling UK population estimates by the Avian Population Estimates Panel (e.g. Woodward et al. 2020).