Map explanation

This map shows where changes occurred in the breeding season distribution of the species in Wiltshire between 1995-2000 and 2007-2012, as revealed by the fieldwork for Birds of Wiltshire (Wiltshire Ornithological Society 2007) and the shared fieldwork for Bird Atlas 2007-2011 (BTO 2013) and for Wiltshire Tetrad Atlas 2007-2012.

Gains and improvements

Status

Nos tetrads


Absent to present

12

1%


Present to breeding

0

0%


Absent to breeding

0

0%


No change

Status

Nos tetrads


Present in both

2

<1%


Breeding in both

0

0%


Losses and declines

Status

Nos tetrads


Present to absent

10

1%


Breeding to present

0

0%


Breeding to absent

2

<1%


Pied Flycatchers breed in scattered locations in western Europe and more numerously from central Europe, north to Fenno-Scandia and east to western Siberia. In winter they migrate to western and central Africa.
    In Great Britain, they breed mostly in wooded upland areas in Wales, western and northerm England and patchily in Scotland. There was a 2% contraction in their range between the 1968-72 Breeding Atlas and Bird Atlas 2007-2011 but these figures conceal a 35% range expansion between 1968-72 and the 1988-91 Breeding Atlas, followed by a 27% contraction between the latter atlas and Bird Atlas 2007-2011. The causes of this rise and fall are not clearly understood but are thought to be connected to changes in the availability of suitable nest holes.The species is absent from Ireland.
    In Wiltshire Pied Flycatchers have been regularly recorded on passage, mostly in the spring but occasionally in late summer, at least since 1837, but it was not until 1931 that breeding was first recorded. This has been followed by a scattering of mostly suspected, but unconfirmed, breeding records in the following decades. Birds of Wiltshire recorded them in 14 tetrads, with breeding confirmed or probable in two. WTA2 also recorded them in 14 tetrads but with no breeding records at all. In 2013 a pair successfully raised six young in a nestbox in the southwest of the county and another brood of four were raised in the same nestbox, presumably by the same parents, in 2014.

References
The following references are used throughout these species accounts, in the abbreviated form given in quotation marks:
1968-72 Breeding Atlas” – Sharrack, J.T.R. 1976:  The Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A. Poyser
1981-84 Winter Atlas” – Lack, P.C. 1986:  The Atlas of Wintering Birds in Britain and Ireland. T. & A. Poyser
1988-91 Breeding Atlas” – Gibbons, D.W., Reid, J.B. & Chapman, R.A. 1993: The New Atlas of Breeding Birds in Britain and Ireland 1988-91. T. & A. Poyser
Birds of Wiltshire” – Ferguson-Lees, I.J. et al. 2007 : Birds of Wiltshire, published by the tetrad atlas group of the Wiltshire Ornithological Society after mapping fieldwork 1995-2000. Wiltshire Ornithological Society.
Bird Atlas 2007-2011” – Balmer, D.E., Gillings, S., Caffrey, B.J., Swann, R.L., Downie, I.S. and Fuller, R.J. 2013: Bird Atlas 2007-2011: the Breeding and Wintering Birds of Britain and Ireland
WTA2” – ("Wiltshire Tetrad Atlas 2 ") the present electronic publication, bringing together the Wiltshire data from “Birds of Wiltshire” and “Bird Atlas 2007-11”, together with data from further fieldwork carried out in 2011 and 2012.
"Hobby" - the annual bird report of the Wiltshire Ornithological Society.