Oystercatcher (Haematopus ostralegus)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vertebrate > bird > Bird |
| Red List Status: | Vulnerable (Breeding) [VU(br)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Haematopus ostralegus |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | Linnaeus, 1758 |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | Stanbury et al., 2021 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Long term significant increase Eng BBS (25 yr +50%, 10 yr stable). Eng WeBS trends (25 yr -16%, 10 yr -7%). |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Highly vulnerable to habitat loss and disturbance on the coast. |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | coastal habitat creation could benefit the species if disturbance and predation managed or better protected coastal areas |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Medium-high |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Structured - sufficient |
| Species Comments: | oystercatcher have been noted this year nesting in unusual places - car parks, very small roadside verges and similar, and having successful breeding attempts here. could there be a separate focus on these small unexpected niches that pairs are finding for themselves and investigating what we could learn from that - are oystercatchers increasing because they are able to make use of the urban environment better than other waders etc |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Reduce the impacts predation and disturbance by implementing monitored Beach Nesting Bird schemes at key sites to protect nests that trial intervention methods to improve breeding success.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Special (in situ) measure
Duration: 6-10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites: isles of Scilly, n Norfolk, Cumbria Northumberland, Thames est.
Comments:
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Research to identify trial management solutions for recovery of Oystercatcher in the uplands.
Action targets: 4. Autecology and pressures understood
Action type: Scientific research
Duration: Unknown
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments:
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Manage appropriate lowland wet grassland breeding habitat for Oystercatcher, targeted using results from the BWWM survey.
Action targets: 7. Best approach adopted at appropriate scales
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: ≤ 50 sites
High priority sites:
Comments: Link this action in with the urban nesters
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.