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UK Wildlife Blog

Britains most common bird

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After the question of what is Britains biggest bird, I thought I'd ask and answer another question: What is Britains commonest bird? The first set of data I have used is that based on numbers of breeding pairs or breeding territories. This is because the actual number of each bird species in the UK rises and falls depending on the time of year due to migrations, breeding and deaths in winter etc, so the number of breeding pairs gives a clearer picture of the true abundance of each species. I also used this data as it is easily accessible on the RSPB website

The top 10 most common British birds are:





1. Wren









2. Chaffinch









3. Robin









4. Blackbird









5. House sparrow









6. Blue tit









7. Wood pigeon









8. Dunnock








9. Willow warbler









10. Great tit








Surprisingly the starling isn't in the top 10, which shows how much its numbers have declined recently

Hello and welcome to the UK WILDLIFE BLOGRSPB Big garden birdwatch 2008

Comments

Lois 22. August 2008, 12:04

Lovely series and very interesting too!

Adele 22. August 2008, 19:37

Yeah, when I get starlings in the garden I stop for a second look these days :frown:

I'm sure most people wouldn't guess that willow warblers are in the top ten!

Neil 22. August 2008, 20:20

@ cakkleberry - thanks

@ adele - I was suprised by willow warblers too. What else suprised me was the sky larks at 11 (i thought they were uncommon, but it turns out there just declining rapidly) and 12 the guillemot (as Ive only ever seen 2!)

Andy Wilson 23. August 2008, 14:45

A wren #1 over a House Sparrow, wow.
I stopped putting bird feed in the feeder because there were to many House Sparrows.

Neil 23. August 2008, 20:16

@ dudley - its ironic that the house sparrow is doing TOO well in the US were it has been introduced, mean while in the UK the numbers are declining rapidly

Anonymous 15. September 2008, 20:56

Dean Eades writes:

Would you like to Exchange links
http://www.BirdMad.com

Neil 15. September 2008, 21:36

Sure thing Dean

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