Top Ten Garden Birds 2025
Reports
The last weekend in January 2025 was the weekend of the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch. This was the forty-fifth 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 twenty-four sets of Arran results sent to me, compared to thirty-one last year, twenty-eight in 2023, twenty-six in 2022, thirty-five in 2021 and twenty-two in 2020.
This year the weekend was dominated by the life threatening, red alert named storm, Éowyn, that battered through on the Friday. Having said that, blustery wind and rain also dominated last year’s event.
The range of species seen in each garden ranged from sixteen to one with seventeen of the gardens recording ten or more species. This is similar to last year. Four gardens recorded more than sixty birds, but none came close to more than one hundred and eighty birds recorded last year in their allocated hour. In total, thirty species were reported which is one less than last year. Common Crossbill was recorded for the first time in the Arran RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. In addition, the following species were recorded this year but not last: Great Spotted Woodpecker, Lesser Redpoll and Pied Wagtail. The following species were not recorded this year but were recorded last year: Grey Heron, Raven, Sparrowhawk and Yellowhammer. Comparing species that were seen in both years, Blackbird went from being recorded in 77% of the gardens last year to 97% of the gardens this year. Similarly, Song Thrush went from 6% of the gardens last year to 39% of the gardens this year. On the other hand, Great Tit went from being recorded in 90% of gardens last year to 78% this year.
Blackbird was recorded in all except one of the gardens and Blue Tit and Chaffinch were recorded in all except two gardens. Chaffinch had the largest total of birds, namely 291. House Sparrow had the second largest total, 132 and Goldfinch the third largest total, 79.
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: Blackbird, Chaffinch, Blue Tit, Robin, House Sparrow, Dunnock, Great Tit, Coal Tit, Goldfinch and Woodpigeon. This is the same top nine as last year, with Goldfinch replacing Greenfinch in the top ten. The order is different with some species moving up and others moving down. For example, Blackbird moved up from 6th last year to 1st this year while Great Tit moved down from 2nd last year to 7th 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
Enjoy your birding.
