Well the Big Garden Birdwatch proved to be a bit of battle
for our resilient counters. The chosen weekend with it high winds, heavy rain, hailstorms
and thunder and lightning, was atrocious, the RSPB couldn’t have picked a better weekend...not.
Laura from Liverpool RSPB undertook a mini scouse birdwatch
count, 17 households across Merseyside and Warrington sent in their counts
which you can see on the tables below.
Adjectives used to
describe results and experiences read - disappointing, poor, awful, missing, nothing
unusual, arrived later and down. According
to twitter and the on BBC's Winterwatch we weren’t alone, the feeling was
nationwide and the count was further exasperated by the RSPB website crashing, hopefully just overwhelmed by the response!
I’m sure you’ll draw your own conclusions from the
table, and certainly the weather appears to have affected the counts, as many
people stated they had regulars missing and numbers even halved from a more
usual winters day count.
I was not surprised to see goldfinches at the top as these
birds have been in ascendancy in recent years, indeed from our table the
finches were more prevalent in gardens than our poor sparrows and starlings
Neither was I surprised to see wood pigeon in the top 10 either
, these birds moving in to suburbia from their more traditional farmland
habitat.
Once again House sparrows
and starlings showing a worrying trend with only 5/6 households out of 17 having
them visit.
Blackbirds were top of the list for presence, followed by bluetit.
Not a sniff of mistle and song thrushes anywhere, with only
fieldfare arriving in our Warrington garden. Perhaps the weather is too mild, I
usually only get the thrushes when it snows!
A little comparison count was included, sent in by our BTO
friend Bob who lives in Shropshire. I
was expecting to see more farmland birds than rook, jackdaws and fieldfare, but
he did have a great count of 32 H sparrows – apparently 60 arrived after his
count! Obviously the rural habitat suits this flock and maybe it will give us a
few pointers on what we should be doing in town. Bob rings his sparrows as part
of the BTO's bird survival project:
For those of you who have enjoyed taking part in the big
garden birdwatch and would like to record more, please consider joining the BTO
garden birdwatch , this will involve you recording your birds every week and
uploading them to the BTO. The count includes other nature sightings such as
insects & mammals and also records the type of food you put out, more
recently they have included your sightings of diseased & dead specimens.
Many thanks to all those who took part in my little survey, I
hope you find it of interest, please free
to add you comments, observations
on our blog.
|
`Bob’s
Shropshire
|
|
|
Total seen
|
Of 17 Mersey gardens/green
spaces
|
|
3
|
|
Blackbird
|
42
|
16 Gardens
|
|
|
|
Blackcap
|
1
|
1
|
|
5
|
|
Blue tit
|
22
|
13
|
|
3
|
|
Chaffinch
|
15
|
8
|
|
|
|
Coal tit
|
4
|
3
|
|
2
|
|
Collared dove
|
5
|
3
|
|
|
|
Crow
|
6
|
2
|
|
2
|
|
Dunnock
|
9
|
7
|
|
9
|
|
Fieldfare
|
|
|
|
6
|
|
Goldfinch
|
65
|
9
|
|
|
|
Greenfinch
|
10
|
6
|
|
|
|
Grey wagtail
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
Gt spotted woodpecker
|
2
|
2
|
|
4
|
|
Gt tit
|
14
|
10
|
|
32
|
|
House Sparrow
|
31
|
5
|
|
3
|
|
Jackdaw
|
|
|
|
|
|
Long tailed tit
|
8
|
3
|
|
1
|
|
Magpie
|
17
|
10
|
|
|
|
Pied wagtail
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
Pigeon feral
|
22
|
4
|
|
|
|
Redwing
|
5
|
1
|
|
2
|
|
Robin
|
13
|
11
|
|
1
|
|
Rook
|
|
|
|
|
|
Sparrowhawk
|
1
|
1
|
|
3
|
|
Starling
|
34
|
6
|
|
|
|
Wood pigeon
|
29
|
12
|
|
|
|
Wren
|
1
|
1
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Top
10 2014
|
Total
seen
|
%
of 17 gardens
|
|
1
|
Goldfinch
|
65
|
53%
|
|
2
|
Blackbird
|
42
|
94.%
|
|
3
|
Starling
|
34
|
37.5%
|
|
4
|
H sparrow
|
31
|
31.25%
|
|
5
|
W pigeon
|
29
|
70%
|
|
6
|
Blue tit
|
22
|
76%
|
|
7
|
Feral pigeon
|
22
|
23%
|
|
8
|
Magpie
|
17
|
62.50%
|
|
9
|
Chaffinch
|
15
|
47%
|
|
10
|
G tit
|
14
|
62.50%
|
|
Merseyside 2013
|
||
|
1
|
Merseyside
|
Blackbird
|
|
2
|
Merseyside
|
House
sparrow
|
|
3
|
Merseyside
|
Starling
|
|
4
|
Merseyside
|
Blue tit
|
|
5
|
Merseyside
|
Woodpigeon
|
|
6
|
Merseyside
|
Goldfinch
|
|
7
|
Merseyside
|
Collared
dove
|
|
8
|
Merseyside
|
Magpie
|
|
9
|
Merseyside
|
Robin
|
|
10
|
Merseyside
|
Feral
pigeon
|
