Spotted Flycatcher

Spotted Flycatcher Muscicapa striata

Fairly common but much decreased and now very local summer visitor and passage migrant.


Spotted Flycatcher 210610 Linwood Warren RussDHayesSpottedFlycatcher 290611 NthKelseyMoor RussHayes topaz enhanceSpottedFlycatcher 180612 Spridlington RussHayes topaz enhance

 
Spotted Flycatchers: left, Linwood Warren June 21st 2010; centre, North Kelsey Moor June 29th 2011; right, Spridlington June 18th 2012 (Russell Hayes).
 

Spotted Flycatcher is one of our summer visitors which migrates the longest distance into African, wintering right down into South Africa. It is also one of our latest arriving spring migrants. Both these factors need to be kept in mind when looking at the massive 93% decline this species has experienced in England over the 50 years since 1967 based on the CBC/BBS index. According to the Atlas which estimated the population at 2,000-3,800 pairs in the 1980s it had already suffered a 50% decline from then, to the end of the 1990s. That decline has continued with maybe a few bumps on the way down. The APEP4 adjusted estimate was of only 250 pairs in Lincolnshire in 2016 and it has now largely disappeared as a breeding bird from the north-eastern half of the county. In the southern Wolds in what appeared as a stronghold in the Relative Abundance map for the species in BTO Atlas 2007-2011, it is now more difficult to find. BTO BirdTrends offers no explanation of the causes of the decline other than to note that it is likely the result of reduced juvenile survival. Another case of the young of insectivorous birds starving through reduced insect populations?  Peak counts over the five years to 2018 ranged from six in 2017 to 22 on August 5th, 2015 at Spridlington north of Lincoln. The autumn migration is on a broad front across the county and not confined to the coast. Recoveries of birds ringed in Lincolnshire have come from Algeria (May 1972), Portugal (October 1964) and Spain (August 1979).

(Account as per new Birds of Lincolnshire (2021), included December 2022)

   

About Us

We are the Lincolnshire Bird Club. Our aims are to encourage and further the interest in the birdlife of the historic County of Lincolnshire; to participate in organised fieldwork activities; to collect and publish information on bird movements, behaviour, distribution and populations; to encourage conservation of the wildlife of the County and to provide sound information on which conservation policies can be based.

LBC Birder Resources