Conservationists celebrate return of finches in UK gardens

Sparrows topped the RSPB's Birdwatch poll

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Wednesday, 26, Mar 2008 11:03

Conservationists are celebrating the results of a study that showed the number of finches in UK gardens is at the highest level for five years.

According to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) the average number of four species of the finch, which spend winter in the UK, has increased.

For the first time since the start of the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, the siskin finch was rated in the top 20 birds seen in gardens.

Siskins were spotted in three times as many gardens than in 2007 and over the last five years siskin numbers have increased by almost two-thirds.

Other finch species have been much more numerous than usual.

These include the brambling, which has moved from 57 to 36 in the rankings, and the redpoll, seen in twice as many gardens this year as last.

Dr Andre Farrar of the RSPB said: "It's definitely been a good winter for finches.

"Many of them are here because of food supplies. The increase in bramblings, up by two-thirds in the last five years, reflects the scarcity of beech seed known as 'mast' in northern Europe and Scandinavia – if the mast crop is poor in these countries, we see more of them here in our gardens."

He added: "Along with siskin increases, numbers of redpolls seen in gardens have skyrocketed.

"Again this is probably due to supply of food; both birds feed on conifers and deciduous seeds, so the figures suggest that tree seed supplies have been poor this year and they've been forced into gardens to find food."

Despite the positive findings for the finch, the Birdwatch survey also found that overall garden bird numbers are low.

The average number of birds seen in each garden has fallen by a fifth since 2004.

The top three birds spotted by the 400,000 Birdwatch participants were house sparrow, starling and blackbird.