We did the Big Garden Birdwatch last weekend and I'm just getting round to entering my results. However, I have a query about our house sparrow count...
Throughout the hour, there was a group of sparrows hiding in the hedge at the bottom of the garden (the hedge is part of our garden). Every so often a few of them would pop out and land on our feeders. It wasn't possible to count them in the hedge because it is too dense. The highest number on the feeders in one go was 7.
Later on in the hour, 12 sparrows flew out of the hedge and up over the house - a group of 5, closely followed by a group of 7.
So the question is, do I report that we saw 7 house sparrows or 12? Only 7 landed on our feeders in one go, but there were obviously 12 in the hedge. If the hedge was less dense I could possibly have counted the 12 while they were perched there. So I'm leaning towards putting 12, but is there an official line on this?
Hi Gilly,
I disagree with Doggie, even tho you have 12 House sparrows you have to count the largest number out of the group...I'm unindated with house sparrows and if you read the counting procedure on the RSPB website it says how many at one time...so for example if you counted 15 in the hedge but 8 bobbed down, flew back in then 10 bobbed down flew back then 6, the Total number at the time was 10....I had 27 house sparrows in my garden but only 7 was the largest at one time.
So in your case Gilly its 7....7 feeding and 7 in flight.
With flocking species in hedges it is a really tricky one to get it exactly right, they rarely stay still long enough or perch conveniently to allow easy counting. Both Alan and Ian are right in a way which may sound confusing, i will explain!
If you saw a flock of 7 leave the hedge immediately followed by a flock of 5 with no chance that the original 7 could have returned to the hedge then a count of 12 would be acceptable as you can be sure that you spotted 12 different birds. We are ok with people interpreting the survey in this way.
However, Ian Goldsworthy is right in saying that you should always try to count the highest number of the species seen at any one time, so if you had not seen them fly out in these two groups one after the other, you would have put 7.
Either way it's an impressive count and it's great to hear about your sighting, thanks for asking the question!
Warden Intern at Otmoor.