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Red, amber and green explained

Red listed: the bittern is one of the rarest UK breeding birds

The UK's birds can be split in to three categories of conservation importance - red, amber and green.

Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action. Amber is the next most critical group, followed by green. 

Please refer to our PDF download for the full list of red and amber categorised species (see link). 

Birds in the red and amber lists will be subject to at least one of the relevant factors listed below. Again, a full list of criteria can be found in the PDF download (see link).

Red list criteria

• Globally threatened
• Historical population decline in UK during 1800–1995
• Rapid (> or =50%) decline in UK breeding population over last 25 years
• Rapid (> or =50%) contraction of UK breeding range over last 25 years   

Amber list criteria

• Historical population decline during 1800–1995, but recovering; population size has more than doubled over last 25 years
• Moderate (25-49%) decline in UK breeding population over last 25 years
• Moderate (25-49%) contraction of UK breeding range over last 25 years
• Moderate (25-49%) decline in UK non-breeding population over last 25 years
• Species with unfavourable conservation status in Europe (SPEC = Species of European Conservation Concern)
• Five-year mean of 1–300 breeding pairs in UK
• > or =50% of UK breeding population in 10 or fewer sites, but not rare breeders
• > or =50% of UK non-breeding population in 10 or fewer sites
• > or =20% of European breeding population in UK
• > or =20% of NW European (wildfowl), East Atlantic Flyway (waders) or European (others) non-breeding populations in UK    

Green list criteria

• No identified threat to the population’s status   

Introduced

This is not a conservation status category, but indicates a species that has escaped and bred in the wild or has been deliberately released into the wild at some point in the UK's history. As these species are not native to the UK, they have no specific conservation status here.

Last modified: 08 March 2004

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