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| |  | | Big Garden Birdwatch
| | | | There was a huge response from listeners to Todayβs appeal for help to conduct a survey of British garden birds in January.
So many people emailed in their sightings that they temporarily crashed the RSPB website.
The Big Garden Birdwatch 2001 has now been completed with data from more than 29,000 gardens across the UK.
More than 48,500 people were involved in the counts, of which about 12,500 were children.
Gardens across the UK were watched, some 90% from England, 4% from Wales, 4% from Scotland, and 2% from Northern Ireland.
More than 90 species were recorded. The most unusual garden visitors were waxwings, kingfishers, lesser spotted woodpeckers, hawfinches, mandarin ducks and ring-necked parakeets. An amazing 4% of gardens recorded wintering blackcaps.
Top 10 most abundant species in 2001:
The most abundant species in 2001 was the starling, as in 2000, narrowly ahead of the house sparrow. The blue tit jumped from fifth to third place this year, swapping places with chaffinch, while robin and great tit also swapped positions in comparison to 2000.
| Species | Mean Count | Total number counted | Ranking in 2000 |
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| Starling | 4.2 | 121838 | 1 | | House Sparrow | 4.0 | 114984 | 2 | | Blue Tit | 3.2 | 91497 | 5 | | Blackbird | 2.8 | 81117 | 4 | | Chaffinch | 2.0 | 57691 | 3 | | Greenfinch | 1.7 | 48426 | 6 | | Robin | 1.5 | 42286 | 8 | | Great Tit | 1.4 | 41342 | 7 | | Collared Dove | 1.3 | 37566 | 9 | | Woodpigeon | 1.0 | 28959 | 10 |
Top 10 most widespread species in 2001:
Perhaps surprisingly, the starling was not the most widespread species. Blackbirds occurred in an amazing 88% of all gardens; blue tits and robins in more than 80%.
In comparison, the two most abundant species, starling and house sparrow, occurred in 62% and 56% of gardens respectively.
| Species | | | Percentage of Gardens Occupied |
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| Blackbird | | | 87.6 | | Blue Tit | | | 81.5 | | Robin | | | 81.0 | | House Sparrow | | | 62.4 | | Starling | | | 56.1 | | Great Tit | | | 56.1 | | Chaffinch | | | 54.2 | | Collared Dove | | | 51.5 | | Greenfinch | | | 44.0 | | Woodpigeon | | | 39.8 |
LINKS
Web chat with Andre Farrar of the RSPB
RSPB - www.rspb.org.uk
Today - State of British Wildlife Special Report - Birds Survey results at www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/
today/specialreport/britwildlife.shtml
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|  | | House Sparrow | | |  | | Collared Dove | | |  | | Great Tit | | |  | | Green Finch | | |  | | Starling | | |  | |
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