The second in this annual series of overviews of Britain's major bird monitoring programmes. It presents the results of censuses, bird ringing, and many other studies, effectively making it a national bird report for the period 1990 through spring 1991. It is split into three sections: the first assesses the conservation successes and failures of the year; the second reports on individual monitoring programmes; the final section gives species accounts, each giving present population trend, change in CBC index and latest estimate of breeding population.