I enjoyed doing the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch – as always.
Did you do it too? If so, you and I were two of the 585,000 participants. That’s more than all the political parties put together – so we are voting for birds. Have you voted for the Hen Harrier in this poll yet?
The BGBW results are out and show that three of the Hen Harriers rivals in the national bird vote are common garden birds (Robin, Blackbird and Blue Tit) – but the Hen Harrier could eat them for breakfast!:
| 1 | House sparrow | 4.254 | 64.58 | 1 | -57.5 |
| 2 | Starling | 2.957 | 43.92 | 3 | -80.3 |
| 3 | Blackbird | 2.753 | 91.63 | 4 | -31.2 |
| 4 | Blue tit | 2.737 | 81.55 | 2 | 12.2 |
| 5 | Woodpigeon | 2.018 | 70.29 | 5 | 909.1 |
| 6 | Chaffinch | 1.445 | 40.39 | 6 | -51.8 |
| 7 | Robin | 1.443 | 86.53 | 10 | -27.8 |
| 8 | Great tit | 1.399 | 56.72 | 8 | 55.5 |
| 9 | Goldfinch | 1.300 | 28.38 | 7 | NA |
| 10 | Collared dove | 1.205 | 47.96 | 9 | 330.2 |
Henry might be able to eat them for breakfast, but he’s only at 14:1 for national bird and robbie is at 5/2 on!
Can we have some column headings, Mark? Otherwise, it’s a nice table but it’s meaningless!
Hugh – ah! These things always seem to happen when I am away from the office. Let’s call it a guessing game for now!
Going from left to right I think the column headings should be: rank, species, mean number recorded per garden, % of gardens in which recorded, change in rank (from 2014) and % change in % of gardens in which recorded (from 2014). However, the figures reported seem to differ somewhat from those in the spreadsheet that can be downloaded from the RSPB. That could be because the spreadsheet gives separate reports for England, Wales, Scotland and N Ireland but not a combined report for the whole UK. Maybe Mark’s figures are for the UK as a whole? (In which case can you give a link to the table you used, please, Mark?)
Jonathan – I got the table from an RSPB press release! I am pretty sure you are right with all the columns but am unable to check right now. Sorry folks.
Why do you allways push hen harrier? I’m a very keen bird watcher but get sick of you pushing your opinion on to others…have you voted for hen harrier in this poll yet…. The hen harrier could eat them all for breakfast… In my opinion there is true birders that have an interest in all birds and birders that claim they do but really only care about raptors. what about other birds that are rare or doesn’t it matter because they don’t eat other birds? All I ask is that you let people make their own decisions instead of getting them to do what you think, why not ask if they have remembered to vote? Other people are allowed their own opinion without being brainwashed,it may be your opinion and you are entitled to it but let it be yours and keep it to yourself. This will not be a true poll if you influence everybody. I personally think it should be wren if you actually care!
Paul – that made me laugh!
Why?
Paul – because it was funny
Might be a bit of dull blog if the author of it didn’t express his own opinions…