Ryde Social Heritage Group research the social history of the citizens of Ryde, Isle of Wight. Documenting their lives, businesses and burial transcriptions.
  • MENU

National Results of the 2008 RSPB Garden Bird Watch

Chaffinch
Chaffinch

The results of the 2008 Bird Watch have just been published by the RSPB. Almost 400,000 people took part in the survey nationally counting over six million birds.

The house sparrow retained the top spot from last year with an average of 3.6 seen per garden but here on the Island it was beaten into third place by the blue tit with an average of 2.89 per garden and the blackbird with 2.67 per garden. Overall the bird population has declined by a fifth since 2004 but some good news is the numbers of finches are up and for the first time the goldfinch made the top ten.

In Ryde Cemetery we spotted eight out of the top ten species.

*figures from the official RSPB website www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/results