Top Ten Garden Birds 2024

Reports

The last weekend in January 2024 was the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. This was the forty-fourth year of this event. Households on Arran not only took part in this survey of garden birds, but some shared their results with me. This year there were thirty-one sets of Arran results sent to me, compared to twenty-eight last year, twenty-six in 2022, thirty-five in 2021 and twenty-two in 2020.

This year the weekend was dominated by blustery wind and rain. There had recently been two named storms. Last year the weather was more benign.

The range of species seen in each garden ranged from nineteen to one with twenty-one of the gardens recording ten or more species. ( Last year it was similar with twenty gardens recording ten or more species). One garden recorded more than one hundred and eighty birds in their allocated hour. In total, thirty species were reported which is three more than last year. The following species were recorded this year but not last: Bullfinch, Mistle Thrush, Raven, Song Thrush, Treecreeper and Yellowhammer. The following species were not recorded this year but were recorded last year: Buzzard, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Pied Wagtail. Comparing species that were seen in both years, Greenfinch went from being recorded in 11% of gardens in 2022 to 25% last year to 42% this year and similarly Great Tit went from being recorded in 68% of gardens last year to 90% this year. On the other hand, Goldfinch decreased from 54% last year to 32% this year.

Chaffinch was recorded in all except one of the gardens and Blue Tit, Great Tit and Robin were recorded in all except three gardens. Chaffinch had the largest total of birds, namely 359. House Sparrow had the second largest total, 165 and Coal Tit the third largest total, 101.

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: Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Coal Tit, Blackbird, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Greenfinch and Woodpigeon. This is the same top eight as last year, Greenfinch and Woodpigeon replacing Goldfinch and Collared Dove in the top ten. The order is different with some species moving up and others moving down. For example, Great Tit moved up from 8^th last year to 2^nd this year while Blackbird moved down from 2^nd last year to 6^th 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