Top Ten Garden Birds 2023
Reports
The last weekend in January 2023 was the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. This was the forty-fourth year of this event. Households not only took part in this survey of garden birds, but some shared their results with me. This year there were twenty-eight sets of Arran results sent to me, compared to twenty-six last year, thirty-five in 2021 and twenty-two in 2020.
Last year the weekend was dominated by two named storms one on the Saturday followed by one on the Sunday. This year the weather was more benign.
The range of species seen in each garden ranged from thirteen to four with twenty of the gardens recording ten or more species. One garden recorded more than one hundred birds in their allocated hour. In total, twenty-seven species were reported which is five fewer than last year. The following species were recorded this year but not last: Buzzard, Feral Pigeon, and Great Spotted Woodpecker. The following species were not recorded this year but were recorded last year: Barn Owl, Bullfinch, Brambling, Goldcrest, Grey Wagtail, Lesser Redpoll, Raven, Song Thrush, and Yellowhammer. Comparing species that were seen in both years, Greenfinch went from being recorded in 11% of gardens last year to 25% this year and similarly Dunnock went from being recorded in 61% of gardens last year to 75% this year. On the other hand, Great Tit decreased from 88% last year to 68% this year.
Again, this year Robin was the only bird to be reported in every garden while Blackbird was recorded in all except two gardens. Chaffinch had the largest total of birds, namely 291. House Sparrow had the second largest total, 209 and Goldfinch the third largest total, 112.
From the collation from all the gardens, the top ten birds this year in terms of the number of gardens in which they were seen are: Robin, Blackbird, Chaffinch, House Sparrow, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Dunnock, Great Tit, Goldfinch and Collared Dove. This is the same top ten as last year, but the order is different with some species moving up and others moving down. For example, Blackbird moved up from 7th last year to 2nd this year while Great Tit moved down from 4th last year to 8th this year.
For a collation of all the Arran data from the Big Garden Birdwatch for the last five years visit this webpage
While this information is interesting, too much should not be read into these small samples. It is a fun survey to do but it only covers one weekend in the year. If you enjoy your garden birds, there is a survey that you can join that encourages people to record their garden bird sightings every week of the year. It is called the British Trust for Ornithology Garden BirdWatch (GBW). To find out more about the BTO Garden BirdWatch visit the website
