Sharp drop in number of starlings visiting gardens

Starlings are the most frequent feathered visitors to British gardens, a survey of more than 300,000 amateur ornithologists run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has found.

But the Big Garden Birdwatch said the number of starlings had plummeted to an average of 4.9 sightings per garden, compared with 15 in 1979, the first year of the survey – a decline of 67 per cent.

House sparrows were the second most common bird, with an average of 4.8, a decline of 52 per cent since 1979 when on average 10 birds were seen in each garden.

This year, 303,000 people took part, including 44,000 children, beating last year's 262,000 and also the world record previously held by BirdLife International's 2001 World Bird Festival for the biggest event of its kind.

Big Garden Birdwatch, which takes place over the last weekend in January, asks participants to spend one hour counting the birds in their garden, school grounds or local park and to record the highest number of each species seen at any one time.

The "top 10" most common garden birds in this year's event were the starling, house sparrow, blue tit, blackbird, chaffinch, greenfinch, collard dove, great tit, robin and wood pigeon.