Half a million people record 8.5 million birds.

A few weeks back I mentioned the remarkable use of citizen science that is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. The results are now out and they managed to recruit an incredible half a million people this year.

All you had to do was sit and watch your garden for one hour on a particular day and bascially count the birds. The results go into a big national database which across the year has shown the changing fortunes of British birds.

The full results are HERE and the highlights are that starlings, whilst remaining regularly recorded, have declined  by 80% since the Big Garden Bird Watch began in 1979 and green finches are also in decline. The decline of the latter is ascribed to a disease that they can pick up from bird feeders if they are not regularly cleaned! The reasons for the decline in starlings is more cryptic.

More positively, the wren, blackbird and robin are all doing well.

Here is this top twenty (starting from the most recorded):

House sparrow

Starling

Blackbird

Blue tit

Woodpigeon

Chaffinch

Robin

Great tit

Goldfinch

Collared dove

Magpie

Dunnock

Long tailed tit

Feral pigeon

Carrion crow

Jackdaw

Coal tit

Greenfinch

Wren

Common gull The marsh tit illustrated above may be a willow tit. Either way it is a relatively rare bird and seen near the canal and not in my back garden!