All together now...watch the birdie
Survey finds house sparrows, starlings and blackbirds are most frequent visitors to Yorkshire’s gardens
WITH A successful breeding season behind us and the temperature in Yorkshire expected to reach double figures for perhaps the first time this year, it looks like being a rare old weekend for birdwatchers.
Some 39,000 children and adults in the county alone took part in the last annual Big Garden Birdwatch, organised by the RSPB, and organisers say the conditions this time should bring out both observers and subjects in large numbers.
House sparrows, starlings and blackbirds are the most likely visitors to gardens in Yorkshire, the charity said, followed by wood pigeons and collared doves – the latter more common here than in the South.
More than half a million people nationally are expected to take part in the event, which runs from tomorrow to Monday and which the RSPB says is an “annual snapshot of how UK birds are doing”. It will be the 39th such survey.
Organisers want participants to spend an hour watching the birds in their garden or local park, and to log the results on a website.
RSPB conservation scientist Daniel Hayhow, inset, said: “This could be a bumper weekend of sightings for some of our resident British birds.
“Conditions during the breeding season were much better compared to recent years, and our resident birds are likely to have been further helped by relatively kind autumn and winter weather.”
He added: “At this time of the year, your garden has the potential to be a vital source of food and shelter for the garden birds we all know and love, from the flock of starlings at the feeder to the robin perched on the fence.”
The charity says it uses the data to understand more about the nutrients on which garden birds are reliant at this time of the year. The findings are also combined with data from past surveys to identify species that are struggling and in need of human intervention. The RSPB is also asking for information on the other wildlife seen in gardens over the last year, including badgers, foxes, red and grey squirrels, deer, frogs and toads, to help build a picture of the importance of domestic environments in accommodating nature. Last year’s results registered the sparrow as the most-seen bird, despite longterm declines of more than 50 per cent. There are now an average of five per garden in Yorkshire, with sightings in nearly three quarters of properties.
But the charity said it was curious to see how the figures might change this year, following a positive year for greenfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, great tits and long-tailed tits.
Greenfinch numbers have been affected over the last decade by the disease trichomonosis, which has also been documented in chaffinches. More recently there was a downward trend in sightings of the tit species, thought to be linked to a wet breeding season in 2016.
Conditions were much better compared to recent years.
RSPB conservation scientist Daniel Hayhow.