Pigeons and gulls taking over the garden
Sightings of the country’s best-loved birds drop as growing urbanisation benefits the scavengers
Amateur ornithologists have reported spotting fewer small garden birds including sparrows and blue tits, and more pigeons and gulls. A poll by Gardeners’ World magazine found that sightings of some of Britain’s bestloved garden birds had dropped over the past two years. Only 85 per cent of respondents reported sighting blackbirds last year, down from 90 per cent in 2018, while blue tits dropped to 75 per cent from 80 per cent in 2018 and sparrows fell by a similar number.
OPENING their back curtains in the morning, typical British birdwatchers might expect to see a garden full of sparrows, blue tits and blackbirds.
But amateur ornithologists are increasingly spotting a different type of garden bird – pigeons and gulls. A poll by Gardeners’ World magazine found that sightings of some of Britain’s best-loved garden birds had dropped over the past two years, while readers were increasingly spotting the scavenging birds.
While overall sightings grew by 11 per cent, the poll, which had 2,500 respondents, revealed that some birds were being spotted less often. Blackbird sightings dropped to 85 per cent in 2020 from 90 per cent in 2018, while blue tits dropped to 75 per cent from 80 per cent in 2018 and sparrows fell by a similar amount.
Just one in three people reported seeing a dunnock, down from 37 per cent in 2018, and chaffinches fell to 41 per cent from 47 per cent. Since 2013, house sparrows are down 7 per cent and starlings down by 8 per cent.
Experts said that gulls and feral pigeons, which survive by scavenging, were benefiting from increasing urbanisation while other birds suffered from the loss of wild spaces and from increasingly “tidy” gardens. While most birds breed once a year, pigeons can reproduce all year round, and coastal species including gulls and kittiwakes are able to take advantage of large urban buildings as nesting sites. Dr Mike Jeffries, an ecologist and lecturer at Northumbria University, said pigeons were “a bit like us” in that they could adapt to live in different environments. “They’re actually becoming scarcer in general out there in the wild. But, boy, do they do well in cities. They’re scavengers, they nest on the flat tops of the roofs,” said Dr Jeffries. “The gulls, the pigeons, they’re adaptable, they eat all sorts of things. They’re not particularly specialists. So they’ve got that ability to adapt. And that’s why they’re doing well.”
Mark Fellowes, professor of ecology at the University of Reading, said that paved-over gardens and the decline of insects in urban areas was denying birds crucial food sources. “We’ve got to help not just them directly, but the things that they rely on. So let native plants grow in your garden, have a little weedy patch somewhere in a corner, because it’s not just the insects themselves that will benefit. It’s everything that feeds on them,” he said.