House sparrow tops Big Garden Birdwatch charts for 21st year in a row

Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds next most sighted in RSPB survey involving 600,000 participants

A friendly if slightly tuneless chirp is the most ubiquitous birdsong in British gardens with the house sparrow topping the Big Garden Birdwatch charts for the 21st consecutive year, according to the annual RSPB survey.

Blue tits, starlings, wood pigeons and blackbirds were the next most-sighted birds by more than 600,000 participants in the world’s largest wildlife garden survey.

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Spot the punk rockers: hope for waxwing boost in annual UK bird count

People encouraged to record sightings of mohican-sporting birds in RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend

The scale of this waxwing winter will be revealed this weekend when people are encouraged to spend an hour recording the birds they see in their gardens, balconies, parks and school grounds.

The spectacular migratory, mohican-sporting birds have been spotted across Britain during the colder weather and will be recorded alongside more familiar sparrows, blackbirds and robins in the RSPB’s annual Big Garden Birdwatch.

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Sparrows still most spotted bird in UK gardens but population is declining

Number of house sparrows spotted has dropped by nearly 60% since 1979, according to RSPB annual survey

House sparrows are the most spotted bird in UK gardens for the 20th year in a row, according to new data. This comes despite the decline of the bird’s population, with nearly 22 million house sparrows lost from the country since 1966.

Roughly 1.5 million house sparrows were spotted in gardens between 27 and 29 January this year, according to people who took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, the garden wildlife survey conducted by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

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