Starling numbers - up?? (1 Viewer)

thanks for the great replies everyone.

many starlings still around, along with house sparrows whihc had disappeared. less greenfinches now, a few less tits, but the good news is in the back garden many birds are coming now (house 4yrs old)! had a few collared doves, blue tits, great and coals, hs's, starlings, robins and even a chiffchaff!!

Starlings are very much like swallows up here ...one of the first birds to return in the spring, it's arrival is heralded very much like the Swallow to britain. In fact, in this nation of virtually no birders, Starlings are just about the only bird that people seem to appreciate. Many birders put up nestboxes to attract them (so they can eat all the 'bad grubs') - in fact Blue Tit boxes, etc are MUCH rarer. When I got a dozen of so boxes with Blue Tit size holes, several people told me the hole was too small - 'Varnenas (starling) will never get in there!'.

Anyhow, back to the main thread - numbers should be increasing in your gardens 'cos they're streaming south now, got big enough brains to know what weather will be here soon!!!

so are tits actually RARE there?

tp20uk said:

so are tits actually RARE there?

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Not at all ...very common, it's just nestboxes for them are rare! In garden today - Great, Blue, Marsh, Coal and Crested. Occasionally get Willow and Long-tails too.

In winter I ring all the birds - typically get daily totals of about 350 Great Tits, variable 150-200 Blue Tits (by the winter's end, less common early on), 12-15 Marsh Tits, 4-8 Coal Tits (including a 8 year old veteran), 4-6 Crested Tits, 1-2 Willow Tits and still waiting for a vagrabt Azure Tit (this is optimistic - think it's about 50 nyears since the last in this country!)

wow! here we never get crested or azure (for obvious reasons) but i've also never seen willow or marsh, and havnt seen a long tailed for a while.