Flying visits by robins hit 20-year high in UK gardens

Good winter for waxwings

The number of robins visiting gardens hit a 20-year high in this winter’s Big Garden Birdwatch, conservationists said.

Average numbers of the charismatic robin seen per garden were also up – to their highest levels for three decades, making it the seventh most commonly seen bird in the “citizen science” survey in January.

UK gardens also saw a “waxwing winter” with a huge number of the unusual migrant birds which flocked to the country from Scandinavia in search of food, the results from more than 497,000 people who took part in the survey showed.

Waxwings arrive in the UK in large numbers – in what isknownas an “irruption” – once every seven to eight years when the berry crop fails in Scandinavia, and were seen in about 11 times more gardens in 2017 than in the last couple of years.

The birds, which have a dusky pink colouring with a black strip across the eye and a punk-like crest, were seen as far west as Wales and Northern Ireland, Birdwatch organisers RSPB said.

DrDanielHayhow, RSPB conservation scientist, said: “Flocks of these striking-looking birds arrived in the UK along the North Sea coast and will have moved across the country in search of food, favouring gardens where they can feast on berries.

“With it only happening once every seven to eight years, it will have been a treat for the lucky people who managed to catch a glimpse of one.”

There was also a large jump in the number of visits from other migrant birds such as redwing, fieldfare and brambling as sub-zero temperatures on the Continent forced them towards the UK’s milder conditions.

Along with robins, blackbirds also had a good year, rising to third in the Birdwatch rankings and becoming the UK’s most widespread garden bird, spotted in 93% of gardens.

But there was a downturn in sightings of blue tits, great tits and coal tits, thought to be the result of prolonged wet weather in the 2016 breeding season which led to fewer young birds surviving.