House sparrow retains its crown as king of the garden
Many people taking part in a charity’s survey of the nation’s bird life were greeted by an exotic visitor this year.
Greater than normal numbers of waxwings were recorded in RSPB Scotland’s Big Garden Birdwatch, one of the country’s largest mass-science events, which was held over a weekend in January.
The jump in waxing records had been predicted as the winter of 2016/17 was a “waxwing winter”, when large numbers of the distinctive and often very tame birds poured into Scotland from Scandinavia and Russia.
In some years only a handful of the birds are seen in Scotland, but every few years there is an invasion – technically called an irruption – when berry crops fail in their normal range and they move further afield to feed.
Waxwings were seen in around nine times more gardens in 2017 compared to previous years in Scotland.
Wintry conditions around the time the survey was carried out also meant an increase in sightings of two northern visitors, fieldfare and redwing.
Millions of these pour into the country every winter, but they are more likely to come into gardens in hard weather.
This year, the 38th year of the survey, over 35,000 people took part in Scotland and counted 626,184 birds.
House sparrows remained at the top of the Scottish Birdwatch results, a position they have held since 2012. Starlings climbed up once place to second, pushing chaffinches down to third. Blackbirds and blue tits rounded off the top five for 2017.
Keith Morton, species policy officer at RSPB Scotland, said: “The wildlife we see around where we live such as a blackbird singing from a rooftop or a robin perched in a tree is often one of the first experiences we have with nature.
“Having over 35,000 people in Scotland spend an hour taking part in Big Garden Birdwatch is fantastic and an indication of how much people enjoy seeing the wildlife that lives around them. Using the results from the 626,184 birds counted allows us to create a snapshot of how our garden birds are doing now, and compared to previous years.
“Conditions in Scandinavia in autumn and early winter led to suggestions that we could see a much higher influx of waxwings this year and the survey results indicate that this was the case. Waxwings are very striking, exotic-looking birds with prominent crests, bandit masks around their eyes and brightly-coloured waxy quills on their wings, the reason for their name.
“They do visit Scotland most winters but this year around 21 times more waxwings were seen than usually noted in the survey. They were also recorded in far higher number than usual across the rest of the UK and seen as far west as Wales and Northern Ireland."
