New Forest Rspb Local Group

NEW FOREST RSPB LOCAL GROUP

GARDEN BIRD SURVEY

January to March 2015

This quarter produced another addition to our all time list; it was only a matter of time before a Mediterranean gull finally decided to land in one of our gardens having been seen flying over on quite a few occasions one decided to visit a garden in Pennington. Being near to the coast we do get gulls in our gardens and now have recorded six different gull species in our gardens. Another first was getting 100% recording of blackbirds for every garden in every week. Usually at least one person misses out for the odd week. Wood pigeons nearly made the 100% as well but one person missed out by not having any woodies but had feral pigeons all of the time instead!

Long-tailed tits jumped up to seventh place in the gardens list, appearing in 94% of gardens and over half of the weeks although in my garden there were fewer than usual. Greenfinch numbers were down and starlings were less numerous this year after showing an increase from 2013 to 2014. Coal tits suffered a big drop from 2013 to 2014 but showed a slight increase this year. Song thrushes appeared in the same number of gardens as previously but were more regular and climbed three places up the birdweeks table. Pied wagtails returned to the lower ends of the tables after missing out last winter while bullfinches remained in the top twenty five of both and goldcrests by visiting nearly a third of our gardens amde it into the gardens list.

Winter thrushes were rare with redwings being seen in only three gardens and no fieldfares; no bramblings were recorded. A firecrest was recorded for only the second time and an early whitethroat and willow warbler were seen in the last week of the survey. Swallows were seen flying over in the first few days of April by two people whilst a large murmuration of starlings over the Lymington reedbeds was visible from one lady’s house.

One lady had an interesting of kestrels near her house; two kestrels (presumably a pair) had been hanging around for some time when a third bird arrived and engaged in a dogfight with one of the original pair. They flew over her garden tumbling over and clawing at each other with the third bird flying alongside. There was a lot of calling as they flew away continuing the battle and disappearing from view.

Other species reported during the quarter were: blackcap, rook and stock dove (9 gardens); sparrowhawk (8); siskin, pheasant, mistle thrush and green woodpecker (7); black-headed gull, and herring gull (6); feral pigeon and tawny owl (5); marsh tit, grey wagtail redwing, tree creeper and buzzard (3); lesser redpoll, chiffchaff, mallard and reed bunting (2); willow tit, red-legged partridge, willow warbler, kestrel, Mediterranean gull, whitethroat and firecrest (1). Table 1: Percent/Birdweeks Table 2: Percent/Birdgardens

1 Blackbird 100 1 The percentage figure in Table 1 is calculated 1 Robin 100 1 by adding the percentage of weeks that each 1 Blue tit 100 1 observer records any species and dividing by 1 Dunnock 100 1 the number of observers. If an observer records 5 Wood pigeon 97 5 a species for 9 weeks in a 12 week period this is 5 Great tit 97 6 75% for that observer. If the total of all the 7 Long-tailed tit 94 14 percentages for 50 observers is 3000 this gives 8 Chaffinch 91 11 a percent/birdweeks figure of 60. If half of the 8 Magpie 91 7 observers each record a species for half of the 10 Collared dove 85 7 weeks we would get 25% for the 11 House sparrow 79 16 percent/birdweeks figure. 11 Greenfinch 79 7 11 Song thrush 79 14 The percent/birdgardens figure is simply the 11 Wren 13 number of gardens in which a species has been 79 recorded divided by the number of recorders 15 Starling 76 10 and multiplied by 100. The last column in each 16 Goldfinch 74 11 table gives the corresponding rank position for 17 Coal tit 65 19 the corresponding quarter of the previous year. 18 Carrion crow 61 17 19 Great spotted woodpecker 58 18 DR 020615 20 Jackdaw 52 19 21 Nuthatch 41 21 22 Pied wagtail 38 - 23 Bullfinch 35 23 23 Jay 35 - 25 Goldcrest 32 -