2009 Garden Birdwatch

The RSPB’s 2009 'Big Garden Birdwatch' took place over the weekend of 24-25 January. Participants were asked to note the birds seen in their garden or local park over any one-hour period during those two days, recording a) the species seen, and b) the maximum number of individuals of each species seen at any one time during the hour. More than 552,000 people took part.

The WCG took the opportunity to conduct a ‘Woodcote Garden Birdwatch’ by asking people in the village to let us have any lists they were sending to the RSPB. This was our first attempt at conducting a local version of the survey, and we received lists from a total of seven gardens. We’ll make this an annual event, and see if – as with the national survey – we can increase the participation year-on-year.

A total of twenty-seven species were recorded. The Woodcote list in terms of the number of gardens in which each species was seen is as follows (the total number of individual birds noted is indicated in brackets after the species’ name):

FIRST EQUAL (all 7 gardens)
Blackbird (total of 15 individuals)
Blue tit (23)
Chaffinch (23)

FOURTH EQUAL (6 gardens)
Woodpigeon (22)
Robin (10)
Dunnock (11)
Great tit (12)

EIGHTH (5 gardens)
Goldfinch (17)

NINTH (4 gardens)
Magpie (5)

TENTH EQUAL(3 gardens)
Coal tit (7)
Song thrush (3)
Long-tailed tit (13)
Nuthatch (3)
Greenfinch (3)

FIFTEENTH EQUAL (2 gardens)
Collared dove (3)
Starling (2)
Wren (2)
Great-spotted woodpecker (2)
House sparrow (20)
Carrion crow (2)

TWENTY-FIRST EQUAL (1 garden only)
Blackcap (1)
Bullfinch (1)
Sparrowhawk (1)
Kestrel (1)
Rook (2)
Fieldfare (1)
Green woodpecker (1)


The picture these figures paint is close to the national one, but not identical, and it confirms what a number of people have noted about the bird population of our village over recent years. Three species in particular are worth mentioning: House sparrow, Starling, and Collared dove.

Although a sharp fall in the numbers of the once-ubiquitous House sparrow has been noted nationally for several years, it seems to be even more marked in Woodcote, where only two respondents recorded it. On the national list, the House sparrow comes fifth in terms of the percentage of gardens where it was recorded, whereas in Woodcote it comes fifteenth equal. However, this is a sociable species, and where it does occur, the number of individuals seen is usually high (the highest of all in the national survey, in fact). The Woodcote sparrows were located at opposite ends of the village – off Grimmer Way, where 11 individuals were recorded, and on South Stoke Road, where 9 were seen.

The Starling too has undergone a sharp decline nationally in recent years, and the huge flocks that used to gather on winter afternoons are now largely a thing of the past. Nationally, the starling followed the House sparrow on the RSPB’s list as far as the number of individuals seen was concerned: an average of 3.21. But in Woodcote only one individual was seen in each of the two gardens where Starlings were noted.

The picture is similar with the Collared dove. This species had not even been recorded in Britain before the 1950s, but by the latter part of the century it had spread quickly (as it had across much of Europe - starting from the Balkans - in the preceding decades) to become a numerous resident over much of the country. It was certainly a familiar bird in Woodcote not so long ago, but this seems to be no longer the case: only two Woodcote gardens recorded it, and between them notched up only three individual birds, whereas nationally over half of gardens had Collared doves.