1 #BOUASM21 Reversing the last 50 years of habitat degradation may not be sufficient to restore declining bird populations in Europe. The reason for this is that some other - often neglected - factors may be interacting with habitat degradation. 2 #BOUASM21 Overabundant generalist predators are a plausible barrier to reversing declines. We test if nesting strategy (a proxy for predation risk; ground-nesting birds are more vulnerable to generalist predators than other birds) influences breeding bird population trends.