UKC

In the last 2 years alone, there has been a change in proportions and numbers of birds in my garden.

As I write this, there are baker's dozen of wood pigeons on the old trampoline which serves as my bird table. They seem to have been on the increase generally across the country: And I feel like I'm raising for the sparrow hawk.

In Stamford itself, there are lots of the pigeons. So much so that apparently (only just learned this) a pair of Peregrine Falcons are nesting in one of the church towers.

Nowadays I hardly see any finches, yet in the past I have had juvenile Gold Finches on the tramp bird table.

I used to have 3-4 Robins, now I have 1 or 2.

Even the Sparrow and Dunnock numbers are much fewer.

Great and Blue Tit numbers have come up since I replaced the peanut feeder.

Seldom any Thrushes. Yet I had them before, and 4-5 years ago I had a juvenile Nightingale. No longer.

Thankfully Corvids are holding their own, both Magpies, Jackdaws, and Carrion Crows.

Even though there are still lots of apples on the floor for Blackbirds, plus seed, their numbers are down.

I don't use chemicals in my garden. Will we get any increases back towards previous numbers? 

Just makes me think that every vote for, every action to support nature is worthwhile. Good to bring it to our attention. 

We’ve been reasonably stable as numbers go…goldfinches and blackbirds coming back in for the winter. Good to see collared doves back in our garden too. Our regular visit from overwintering Blackcaps just recently.

Starling numbers are up in our neighbourhood…and one notable success has been the rise in Herring gulls which is odd for mid Sussex.

I sometimes see Black Caps, but only in the front garden! Not particularly looked in the conifers where they go recently.

Fewer large birds out front, so the Robins and smaller birds prefer there sometimes. Mind I was surprised that the Robin did not come out when I had cut the grass yesterday in the back garden (last time was about 2 months ago), as it rouses up the bugs, or are they in comatose form now?

For a while we had a lot less visiting garden birds, then realised that our neighbour had started to put out food as well so less visits to us although no reason to believe the number of individual birds has changed.

When the cat eventually demises (he's 15) I'll actually start putting bird feeders out and see what I can encourage into the garden (North Manchester).

Without that:

• Corvids - Magpies, and Jackdaws are numerous, Carrion Crows less so, occasional Jays.
• Sparrows - much less than there used to be, partly because their "original" roosting tree has gone (now much quieter on summer mornings), but also I don't think any have nested in our eaves for the last couple of years
• Tits - Blue, Great & Long-tailed fairly common, occasional Coal tits
• Goldfinches - often on the phone lines, etc - no other finches
• Warblers - none, ever in 18 years, have had Goldcrests once or twice, Wrens fairly common
• Thrushes - Blackbirds fairly common, Song Thrushes definitely more scarce than they used to be, Robins only occasionally, nearest I've seen Redwing is 50m down the road, and Mistle Thrushes just round the corner
• Great-spotted Woodpeckers - hear them often, see flying over sometimes, very occasionally in top of our mature sycamore trees
• Nuthatch - hear them loads - they are noisy things - occasionally in our trees, now the leaves have gone I might actually see them
• Sparrowhawk - occasional fly-through, once had one dining on feral pigeon on our back lawn
• Wood Pigeons - common, don't think we've had Collared Dove actually in the garden but there are some around locally
• Starlings - thinking about it, not that many
• Gulls - many evenings see lots of them (various types) overhead on the way to roosts

If you're in Stamford, have you had Red Kite visible from the garden yet?

I remember as a child in the Midlands there used to be sparrows all over the lawn at hone, plus thrushes and starlings. I see none of those in my garden in Reading. We see pigeons; red kits overhead now and then; we hear blackbirds, and occasional great tips jn the spring. Yesterday I saw a woodpecker. We often hear owls at night.

So far fewer birds, but bigger -??

Kites are all over the place and they glide over work and home. looking for cats to pick on? :-}

I do get troupes of Long Tailed Tits.

A couple of years ago, I got a video of about 5 young Great Spotted Woodpeckers playing in my dead Cherry tree.

If you have a cat, it is thought that by feeding the birds, that you help, as there end up being more birds with more eyes to watch out for the predator cat. So quicker reflexes to avoid being caught.

There’s lots of reasons why there are fewer birds (inc garden birds), but all boils down to one thing - people, too many of us. And it’s a key reason why I don’t agree with this ‘we need to keep the population stable to do jobs and pay taxes etc etc’. The fewer people, the better, and we need to find ways of dealing with this. This is preferable to continuing to screw up the environment. 

I think a major problem is people who want complete control over their gardens seem intent on removing the amount of untidy cover that protects the birds from detection by predators.  I think this reduces the number of places where it is relatively safe for fledglings to survive between feeds. 

When the cover is reduced I think the birds are more stressed, have to exercise hyper vigilance and probably find somewhere other than that garden or that area.  I'm not suggesting posters here are doing that - it just helps create a general hostile environment in which the birds are less free from threat.  This more than cats.

We have been in our house for many years and have seen some changes in bird numbers.

When we first moved in tawny owls calling was common but haven't heard one for at least 10 years.

There were no ring necked parakeets, now they are daily visitors to the bird feeders and seeing a flock of 20 or so(not sure on the number because they fly so fast) is not uncommon.

About 15 years ago we saw a few goldfinches for only a few weeks in January or February. Now there is a large resident population. We've had a dozen or so in the garden at one time and for a few years they were the commonest bird when we did the Garden Bird Watch.

Wood pigeons and collard doves(usually only a few of each) are common as are blue tits, great tits and house sparrows.

The birds that have dropped in numbers in the last three or so years are blackbirds and song thrushes. Rarely see any now and haven't heard a song thrush singing for a couple of years.

Dave

Username checks out . . .

Agreed.

We should not expect as much doing for us. Do things for ourselves. 

Ah yes. I still hear Tawny owls teaching young earlier in the year, but not as frequently. So presumably fewer in number.

Just been out somewhere (BC will know well - Pennington Flash) - absolutely loads of Long-tailed tits there all over the place. Was sitting on a bench next to several trees full of them when a Sparrowhawk dashed through - don't think it got one but boy did they all go into alarm calls for a couple of minutes.

Not quite got time to go into them all now, but I have seen 42 different species from my garden, but this does include the buzzards, oyster catchers, lapwings and curlews etc. flying up or over the valley.  These don't visit my garden, but they can be seen from there.  Actual visitors is also a reasonable number, but can't recall the actual total - probably around 30.  Some are seasonal, even though they are not migrants to the country - proper, happy British birds.

Do you take part in the BTO weekly garden bird watch. If you do, please ignore, of you don't then you might enjoy it. You do have to pay a small amount to be part, but you record weekly records and can see data from around the country. 

But back to your point. I have a lot of finches and tits, but house sparrow numbers are down. I was hoping the 80ft beech hedge I planted 9 years ago, now thick and 7ft tall, would help to boost small bird numbers. Sadly neighbour cats and gardeners who poison the lawns and insects probably not helping.

Not sure how much of a predator cat he still is. The other one (*) used to bring everything in but Dave never did so very difficult to know whether he's still a killing machine.

(*) - died 2 years ago, but was a year younger and of course we called him Javu.

I like it when there are several Blackbirds ticking in annoyance when a cat is outside, and the cat looks cheesed off, sometimes with ears down.

I have intended doing the ornithological survey a few times, but it is at a strange time, and often I don't get the chance due to work, or actually heading to the hills.

I help plant loads of the trees when it first became a manger site, in the early 80’s. Long tailed tits are one of those birds that you never get tired of watching, flirting around in family groups. And let’s face it, they are very cute !  And I saw a Sparrowhawk today , too bloomin fast for the camera as it came flying straight towards me. Still great though.