Garden Birdwatch

Garden Birdwatch figures for 2013 are now available and I have been comparing last year's records with the figures for the whole 13 years that we have been submitting records.  Last year we returned records for 48 weeks and I have worked out percentages of weeks recorded for each species.  Blue tit, Great tit and House Sparrow were present every week last year.  Robin, Woodpigeon, Dunnock, Blackbird and Carrion Crow were present for more than 90% of the weeks, with Magpie appearing 85% of the time. 

Most birds appeared with frequencies that matched the long-term record, some surprisingly constant.  The notable variations were Carrion Crow, up from 64% to 90%, Nuthatch up 67% from 41%, and Sparrowhawk up 29% from 15%.  In the other direction, Collared Dove was down to 40% compared to the long term figure of 53%, Chaffinch down to 33% from 66% and Greenfinch the most disappointing of all down to just 6% from 28%.   For some reason Garden Birdwatch does not list our records of Pheasant, but these have been present in most winter weeks and we now have four (three female and one female) turning up at our seed feeder on a daily basis.

This winter, blackbird numbers have been down, probably because of the very mild winter weather and it will be interesting to see how this shows up in the figures for this year.  

Species	Percentage of weeks present 2013	Percentage of weeks present since 2000
Blue Tit	100	99
Great Tit	100	90
House Sparrow	100	87
Robin	98	92
Woodpigeon	98	95
Dunnock	96	92
Blackbird	94	93
Carrion Crow	90	64
Magpie	85	89
Wren	73	63
Nuthatch	67	41
Coal Tit	54	31
Long-tailed Tit	52	51
Collared Dove	40	53
Great Spotted Woodpecker	38	44
Chaffinch	33	66
Jay	33	24
Song Thrush	31	31
Sparrowhawk	29	15
Blackcap	17	19
Goldfinch	17	25
Greenfinch	6	28
Fieldfare	4	5