Big Garden Bird Watch results are out

It was one of the biggest pieces of distributed research ever conducted outside of official human population census, with over half a million people investing an hour of their time to watch garden birds and then input data via the RSPB garden bird watch website. The results are now published. I wasn’t surprised to see the long tailed tit rising up the charts, having spotted a few around and about and in our garden recently for the first time since I moved here.

Long Tailed Tit

With half a million people caring enough about wild birds to take part, the garden habitat is set to become increasingly important for UK wildlife in general, with bird feeders and ordinary wild bird food now being available in so many more outlets such as supermarkets and hardware stores, not just garden centres and pet shops.

Outside of the UK top ten, there are 63 other species mentioned starting with the Goldfinch, Greenfinch, Dunnock, Magpie, Coal tit , Jackdaw , Feral pigeon , Carrion crow ,Wren, Song thrush, Pheasant , Great spotted woodpecker , Common gull , Rook , Nuthatch , Siskin , Tree sparrow , Bullfinch ,Pied wagtail , Jay , Blackcap ,Fieldfare ,Black-headed gull, Goldcrest and Mallard ending with the rarest observations of Little owl , Meadow pipit , Skylark and Black redstart.