A new species, the Blyth’s Reed Warbler, has bred in the UK for the first time, according to the latest report (Rare Breeding Birds in the UK in 2024) from the Rare Breeding Birds Panel (RBBP), the independent body that monitors the country’s rarest breeding birds. A pair raised young at a site in Highland in 2024. The species typically breeds in Scandinavia and Russia, but its arrival as a UK breeding bird had been predicted: its breeding range has shifted west across Sweden and Norway in recent decades, and singing males have been reported in the UK since 2000. This is the first time, however, that a pair has been recorded. Blyth’s Reed Warbler is the fourth new confirmed breeding species that the RBBP has reported in the last ten years, following Iberian Chiffchaff (2015), Black-crowned Night Heron (2017) and Glossy Ibis (2022).

In addition, a new species features in an RBBP report for the first time; two male Red-breasted Flycatchers were reported holding territories in 2024, in woodland in North-east Scotland and Upper Forth, although neither succeeded in attracting a mate.