The RRBB Big Rhossili Garden Birdwatch:
The Results
A big thank you to all of those who took part in the Rhossili Big Garden Birdwatch – and for those unfortunate enough to miss it, there’s always next year (24-26 January 2025).
Who took part?
Our Big Garden Birdwatch took place during the weekend 26th to 28th January 2024. Thirteen people took part, observing the birds in ten gardens.
Birds Seen
A very respectable total of 316 birds of 24 different species were recorded, giving a average count of 31 birds (11 species) per garden – slightly higher than the RSPB average of 28 birds per garden at the time I recorded my results.
Top Bird
And the prize for top Rhossili Garden bird 2024 goes jointly to…
House Sparrow (which was the bird with the highest average) and…
…the Blue Tit (which had the highest count of those species seen in all 10 gardens).
The full list of species seen1, sorted in the first table by average sightings and then by distribution is:
| Top Bird (Most Populous) | Top Bird (Most Widespread) | |||||||
| Species | Average Count | Rhossili Ranking | Swansea Ranking (2023) | Species | Gardens | |||
| House Sparrow | 6.6 | 1 | 1 | Blue Tit | 100% | |||
| Blue Tit | 4.4 | 2 | 3 | Great Tit | 100% | |||
| Linnet | 3 | 3 | 60 | Robin | 100% | |||
| Great Tit | 2.1 | 4 | 10 | House Sparrow | 90% | |||
| Chaffinch | 2.1 | 5 | 14 | Magpie | 80% | |||
| Long-tailed Tit | 1.9 | 6 | 11 | Blackbird | 70% | |||
| Robin | 1.8 | 7 | 8 | Dunnock | 70% | |||
| Goldfinch | 1.8 | 8 | 9 | Chaffinch | 60% | |||
| Woodpigeon | 1.3 | 9 | 4 | Woodpigeon | 60% | |||
| Blackbird | 1.1 | 10 | 6 | GS Woodpecker | 50% | |||
| Magpie | 1 | 11 | 5 | Long-tailed Tit | 40% | |||
| Coal Tit | 0.7 | 12 | 16 | Coal Tit | 40% | |||
| Dunnock | 0.7 | 13 | 13 | Song Thrush | 40% | |||
| GS Woodpecker | 0.7 | 14 | 23 | Goldfinch | 30% | |||
| Jackdaw | 0.5 | 15 | 7 | Jackdaw | 20% | |||
| Song Thrush | 0.4 | 16 | 20 | Carrion Crow | 20% | |||
| Carrion Crow | 0.3 | 17 | 17 | Nuthatch | 20% | |||
| Nuthatch | 0.2 | 18 | 22 | Wren | 20% | |||
| Wren | 0.2 | 19 | 18 | Pheasant | 20% | |||
| Jay | 0.2 | 20 | 33 | Linnet | 10% | |||
| Pheasant | 0.2 | 21 | 36 | Jay | 10% | |||
| Collared Dove | 0.2 | 22 | 12 | Collared Dove | 10% | |||
| Bullfinch | 0.1 | 23 | 24 | Bullfinch | 10% | |||
| Starling | 0.1 | 24 | 2 | Starling | 10% | |||
Conclusions
So, the big question about the Rhossili variant of the Big Garden Birdwatch is: was it worthwhile? Did it reveal anything useful?
Obviously, it lacks both the scale and the historic data of the RSPB event and so it’s important to be careful when attempting to draw conclusions from the data recorded. But, that said, my personal view is that – quite apart from the enjoyment gained in watching birds for a set hour – the results are interesting and to some extent revealing. And, if we could keep it going for a couple of decades(!), then the results could be very useful indeed…
Perhaps the most obvious conclusion is that you were much more likely to get a high count of birds and species if you fed the birds. Of the ten gardens counted, food was provided in all but one and the count in that one garden was a paltry 11 birds, 6 species.2
One common species in the parish just a few years ago is now, at best, rare. Marst Tit, which I had recorded on previous recent Birdwatches was also missing, possibly gone from the parish. Woodland species (such as Nuthatch, Great Spotted Woodpecker and Jay) were most likely to be seen in gardens adjacent to woodland or copse, whilst the very impressive count of 30 Linnets at Broad Hay is probably explained by its proximity to the cliffs and to the Vile where ‘sacrificial’ crops have been sown.
Three species were seen in all 10 gardens, namely Blue Tit, Great Tit and Robin, whilst 5 species were recorded in just one garden, Linnet, Jay, Collared Dove, Bullfinch and Starling.
The differences between ‘our’ data and that for the County of Swansea (in 2023, as the 2024 data’s not available yet) are also revealing. My bet is that the typical Rhossili garden (if there is such a thing!) is significantly more rural than most gardens involved in the Birdwatch and I think that this is shown in the data. Whereas Starling and Jackdaw were both in the top 10 of the Swansea count (i.e. ranked 2 and 7 respectively) they were well down the Rhossili list – indeed Starling was last with a count of 1 bird in 1 garden. (Of course, neither Starling, nor Jackdaw are uncommon in the parish but they are more likely to be on the cliffs or farmland than in gardens.) The other bird in the top 10 for Swansea was the Magpie, which, but for the outlier Linnet in our watch, would also have been in the Rhossili top 10. The birds replacing Magpie, Jackdaw and Starling in our top ten were Linnet, Long-tailed Tit and Great Spotted Woodpecker.
Participation
Our count covered 10 gardens (5.9% of an estimated 170 potential gardens) with 13 people (6% of an estimated 215 residents) taking part. This might seem a disappointing number (and I think it is) but, for comparison, in last year’s RSPB event about 0.7% of the UK population took part (500,000 of 67,000,000). Of those who participated 6 had not taken part in the Birdwatch previously and 5 had been encouraged to do so because of the Rhossili event.
The probability of someone participating decreased in proportion to their proximity to the organiser!, but gardens in all 3 of the main villages were counted with 5 in Higher Pitton, 3 in Middleton, 1 in Rhossili and 1 in the hinterland of Pilton Green. Indeed, if your garden was in Higher Pitton there was a 38% chance of it being counted whilst in the rest of the parish the probability was 3%. Well done Higher Pitton I say!
Summing up
From my perspective it was a really useful and positive event and hopefully one that we can build on in the future. It encourages close observation and appreciation of what’s in your garden (whilst allowing you to rue the things that aren’t) and it was interesting to compare and contrast the results in different gardens and gardens adjoining different habitats in the parish.
One golden rule of the Birdwatch in my experience is that either just before or after you’ve completed your count something exciting will turn up making you ask ‘Why wasn’t that there when I did my count?’. Last year I had a Treecreeper in the garden the day before and then the day after my count. This year, the Song Thrush decided the very next day to return to sing in the apple tree which was its favourite haunt the year before – and then a couple of days later a male Blackcap appeared very briefly in the garden hedge, something I’ve never seen in winter here before! Finally, I would like to record my gratitude to all those who took part and hope that your enjoyment was as great as mine, especially those who had not done the RSPB Birdwatch before.
Francis Morgan
- I have also added all the base data to the Rhossili Birds spreadsheet available here. ↩︎
- Incidentally, I am not necessarily advocating that supplementary food is put out in gardens! Depressingly, but predictably, in the modern and complex world we live in, there are a number of different views on whether feeding of garden birds is good for biodiversity. There is some evidence that garden feeding helps commoner generalist feeders – such as Blue Tit – but at the expense of rarer species, with specialist diets – specifically the rapidly declining Willow Tit. I’d always thought, well, we don’t have any Willow Tit here so … but there are also the additional factors of the spread of disease at feeders and now of course the very real threat of bird flu. ↩︎
Thank you Francis for your detailed analysis of the local birdwatch results.
You are correct that our location in Middleton is on a flight path down to the vile. The main birds flying on this route can be linnets often mixed with goldfinches, starlings, Jackdaws and at certain times of the year Wood Pigeons.
Barrie