The number of bird species which are endangered in Ireland has grown by 50 per cent to 18 in the past seven years, according to a new study.
Seven years ago there were 12 bird species listed as being endangered, but this has grown to 18 with the completion of work carried out on a 32-county basis by BirdWatch Ireland and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Northern Ireland.
The original dozen species on the so-called "red list" of endangered species comprised: red grouse, lapwing, golden plover, nightjar, hen harrier, barn owl, corncrake, grey partridge, quail, common scoter, roseate tern and corn bunting.
Added to the list is the curlew, the black-necked grebe, the red-necked phalarope, ring ouzel, chough, twite and yellowhammer.
However, the golden plover has been dropped from the red list to the new amber list of a further 77 species of birds for which there is concern about their future, principally because of lack of information on breeding numbers in Ireland.
According to a report in the current edition of Wings, the magazine of BirdWatch Ireland, all those species have had declines of more than 50 per cent in the last 25 years, either in the Republic or the North.
The corn bunting is no longer resident and effectively extinct, however, while the grey partridge has been reduced to about 10 pairs.
"Readers may be surprised to see the yellowhammer, curlew and chough among the new red-listed species, but the evidence indicates that the yellowhammer and curlew are in steep decline, while the chough is holding its own but is included on the list because of its parlous state in Northern Ireland and its declining status in neighbouring parts of Scotland," says the report.
It said the amber-listed birds had undergone less severe declines "together with rare breeding species such as the blacktailed godwit, those with localised distribution and those which occur in international numbers but which have an unfavourable conservation status in Europe. "It will come as a shock to many that the amber list includes such formerly widespread species as the stock dove, cuckoo, skylark, whinchat, grasshopper warbler, spotted flycatcher and redpoll," it went on.
It said the listings, prepared with the assistance of staff from the heritage authorities North and South, would provide a blueprint for action, especially in the cases of the red and amber lists which together total 95 species.