About

30 years of Big Garden Birdwatch

In the late 1970s, we asked our junior membership to count the birds in their garden - over the same weekend.

This 'one-off' idea was so successful, it has grown into the world's biggest survey of its kind.

Thirty years later and you've clocked up more than three million Big Garden Birdwatch hours watching and enjoying the birds in your gardens. That's more than 380 years – wow!

You've also spotted 6 million birds, helping reveal the winners and losers in the garden bird world.

The Losers

House sparrows and starlings are by far the biggest losers! Despite battling with each other to be top of the Big Garden Birdwatch table for the past 30 years, we're seeing fewer of them in our gardens.

But how can they be doing so badly if they're the most common birds in gardens? It's simple really. We still see more of them in our gardens than other birds, but house sparrows and starlings are really sociable birds. They like to hang out in big groups. 30 years ago we would have seen 10 sparrows and 15 starlings in a garden, these days you'd be lucky to see more than three or four. And that's a problem.

Count yourself lucky if you see a song thrush in your garden. They were really common in 1979, but they've plummeted down the Big Garden Birdwatch rankings. This reflects a massive decline that has been seen all across the UK.

Looking at our data from the last five years, it turns out that we're seeing fewer birds in total. Last year, in fact, the total number of birds seen in our gardens was at its lowest for five years.

As a consequence, many of our most loved garden birds, including song thrushes, starlings and house sparrows all remain species of conservation concern.

The winners

Of course, not all news is bad. Welcome to the two biggest winners: pigeons and tits.

Woodpigeons, collared doves, blue, great, coal and long-tailed tits have all stormed into our gardens, making regular appearances in the Big Garden Birdwatch top 15, year on year.

The familiar faces of blackbirds, blue tits and robins were seen in more than 80 per cent of gardens surveyed during the 2007 Birdwatch.

If you need help identifying the birds most likely to appear in your garden this year, take a look at the top 15 UK birds for 2008.

We look forward to your help discovering who is top of the pecking order in 2009.

Breakdown of 2008 results

Below is a recap of the Top 10 birds spotted in gardens.

Download the county-by-county results PDF below, and find out which birds topped the table, and where.