The 2010 Big Garden Birdwatch was hugely well supported - nearly 530,000 participants! Thank you!
That army of citizen scientists recorded over 8.5m birds of 73 species!
Following a severe spell of cold weather we were expecting the populations of many small birds to have been hit - some were and some weren't! I was rash enough to stick my neck out on 26 January and say that I thought that species such as long-tailed tit and wren would definitely be down in numbers, maybe dunnock and robin would be down too, but perhaps fieldfare and redwing would be up because they were flocking into gardens to find food. Well - how did I do?
Long-tailed tits were one of the species most affected, apparently, by the cold weather - their numbers were down by a whopping 27%. Wrens were less common - but not by very much! Robins and dunnocks were very slightly more numerous - I got those wrong! And fieldfares and redwings were a lot commoner. So not too bad - I guess I know a little about birds after all! But your observations are the acid test - anyone can guess, but the real test is what observing nature actually tells us.
Other species which apparently suffered were coal tits (down 20%) and goldcrests - our smallest European bird - (down 75% in numbers).
We'll have to wait a long time before we know whether the BTO/JNCC/RSPB Breeding Bird Survey numbers for the coming season mirror the BGBW findings.
We were asked what food we were offering - I give peanuts; mealworms and mixed seeds. If I had put out bread I could have added Rooks; Jackdaws; Collared Doves; Wood Pidgeon; Black-Headed Gull and Herring Gulls to my list of spotted species!! Interesting that House Spadge comes No 1. Here in my part of West Cornwall, Sparrows aren't so common. Blackbirds would have been my top one, closely followed by Chaffinch.
Well done everyone.
Badjervis.
Lets hope for a good breeding season which could put the numbers of those that have suffered back to where they were.
Right in the SE corner, Long-tailed Tits don't seem to have suffered at all. Just now they seem to be nesting everywhere you stop to look/listen. Goldcrests are common enough in the conifer woods but those in our garden have vanished. Conditions were less severe here and snow lay for a briefer period, but I also noticed LTs were avid fans of fat-balls in our garden & if this were a widespread enthusiasm it would have contributed to their survival.