Big Garden Birdwatch - where are my sparrows?

At the end of January I took part in the RSPB's Big Garden bird watch. I wrote an account of my experiences in my Big Garden Birdwatch post. Now the RSPB have collated the results from over half a million people. The table below shows the top ten birds in East Sussex.

Rank in East Sussex	Species	Average per East Sussex garden	In my garden
1	House Sparrow	3.4	None
2	Blue tit	3.3	2
3	Starling	2.6	2
4	Blackbird	2.6	3
5	Woodpigeon	2	1
6	Great tit	1.4	None
7	Chaffinch	1.4	None
8	Robin	1.3	1
9	Collared Dove	1.2	1
10	Magpie	1.1	2

We also got 1 goldfinch (19th in East Sussex), 1 pied wagtail (30th), 1 song thrush (22nd). Our scores for the top 10 birds are a little less than average, which is surprising since we have a big garden with plenty of trees. That said, the trees and bushes allow the birds to stay out of sight and I didn't include any that I couldn't positively identify from a tantalising glimpse of a shape or a tail.

We do have one gaping gap right at the top of the table - no house sparrows. On previous years we've had a few but this year - none. For me, this is a particularly sad omission. I grew up in the London area and the cheeky sparrow was very much a bird of my childhood. Every time we threw crumbs out in the garden - no posh RSPB food then - dozens of squabbling sparrows would descend to enjoy our scraps. I didn't really notice them going. I had moved around, gone to university in Sheffield and then moved to Sussex. Now seeing or hearing this lively little bird has become a special treat rather than a part of every day life.

If it was only our garden that is missing sparrows, it wouldn't matter, but - although house sparrows are the most common bird in our counts - the RSPB say "Numbers of house sparrows, also on the red-list, dropped by 17 per cent in gardens compared to 2012 ..."

On their Red, amber and green explained page the RSPB tell us that "Red is the highest conservation priority, with species needing urgent action."

Kate Vincent completed a PhD Investigating the causes of the decline of the house sparrow in Britain and the associated web site has some information on What you can do. Her suggestions include:

• provide seed all the year round - especially sunflower hearts
• provide mealworms in summer, to help the fledglings
• provide a good mixture of shrubs in the garden
• leave some grass long
• provide a well topped-up bird bath all the year round.

Big Garden Birdwatch

The last weekend of January I take part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. Would I see the special visitors that we have been enjoying since the cold weather started? We had a fieldfare on Thursday and a bullfinch on Friday.  I shouldn't ask silly questions. The birds seen to know when the nation is scrutinising their every visit to the garden and stay away, or land tantalisingly in a neighbour's patch, or fly overhead. In short they do anything rather than land in the garden and be counted.

A rook that perched precariously on the telephone wire just outside our garden and a female blackbird that sat sunning itself in our oak for most of the hour.

I did my birdwatch from 9.07 to 10.07 Saturday morning. At the end of my hour the scores on the doors were:

• Blackbird: 3
• Blue tit: 2
• Collared dove: 1
• Goldfinch: 1
• Magpie : 2
• Pied Wagtail: 1
• Robin: 1
• Song thrush: 1
• Starling: 2
• Woodpigeon: 1

We often see birds in the garden but devoting a whole hour to watching them is different. I found I was noting behaviour that I never usually see: the amusing antics of a rook trying to balance on a thin telephone wire; a female blackbird sunning itself in a tree and a cheeky wagtail stealing food from under the beaks of squabbling starlings. The two magpies were plucking twigs from our oak tree. It seems strange that they take the trouble to do this when there are so many lying on the ground.

Our bird count was lower this year: no sparrows, only two starlings, no great or coal tits. On the up side, we got a song thrush and a goldfinch.

If you are reading this on the day I wrote it, you can still fit your hour in. Just spend an hour noting the birds that land in your garden or other patch of ground and submit your results using the link at the top of this post.

Snow weather and wildlife

Over the last week, I've been carefully monitoring the weather forecast and waiting for the predicted snow. Meanwhile it seems that the wildlife has been making its own predictions.There has been a flurry of activity round the bird table.  Birds of all sorts were gobbling down as much food as possible. We even had a song thrush teetering, in a rather undignified fashion, on the edge to grab a particularly tasty morsel. 

For some years I've noticed that sea gull behaviour is a good predictor of the weather. A big flock in the valley means a storm is brewing. At 8:30 on Friday morning about two dozen were swooping round The Dene. At 9:00. the snow started.

Pied wagtail, photographed on January the 19th, 2013

One bird I always notice in the snow is the pied wagtail. They seem to become bolder in this weather, even fluttering around the Dene while the children tobogganed on the slopes. 

 

 The RSPB recommend that we give the birds high energy foods and water. In fact, I think the most important thing you can do for the wildlife is keeping a water supply free of ice.  We find that apples and grapes are popular too. In previous years a fieldfare has visited our garden and munched its way through about half an apple a day.

It is always worth checking the tracks in the garden to see who has been visiting.  So far, it is all birds and cats. No foxes yet. You can tell the difference between a cat and a fox trail. Cats don't like getting wet and almost jump from one place to another leaving clean holes in the snow. Foxes slink close to the ground and tend to leave lines where they have dragged their feet through the snow.