Over the period studied, 17 species showed significant decreases in abundance and 12 species showed significant increases. Whilst population trajectories were diverse, long-distance migrants showed more negative trends than other species and the timing of the changes in their populations was related to their wintering latitude, suggesting that these species may be suffering from environmental changes in the non-breeding season. There was also support for habitat specializations being related to population changes. Additionally, species eating seeds in summer declined and those eating vegetation and making use of the agricultural landscape matrix increased. Therefore wide-scale factors such as landscape-scale processes or processes operating outside of Britain appear to be important in addition to local habitat change, especially for long-distance migrants.