I’ve gone back to look at the BirdTrack reporting rate graphs for two species which I think exemplify Lockdown – House Sparrow and Little Egret.
During Lockdown from 24 March until late May there was a big increase in reporting rate (% of complete bird species lists entered into Birdtrack) for House Sparrow. The simplest explanation for this is that lots of birdwatchers were restricted in going out and started submitting lists of birds seen from their house and/or garden during this period (I know I did!) and because gardens are good for House Sparrows then reporting rate went up. And it went up very noticeably.
Whereas with Little Egrets, the opposite occurred. You don’t see Little Egrets from many gardens, you have to go to the coast or wetlands to find them (although I saw Little Egrets flying over my garden a couple of times during Lockdown), and so their reporting rate declined, but has now got back to normal.
So that’s Lockdown – a blip in Birdtrack reporting rates!
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A lock and key explanation. But the Sparrow plot seems to have an added twist to it: June seems to be surprisingly well reported.