South Lanarkshire Birdwatch results released

Overall more than 632,000 birds were counted in Scotland. In South Lanarkshire house sparrows took the top spot.

Across Scotland house sparrows stayed at the top of the rankings, while starlings moved up one place to second and chaffinches moved down a place to third.

Both robins and tree sparrows saw big climbs in the top 20. Robins moved up three places to number six and were Scotland’s most widespread garden bird after being seen in more than 91.4 per cent of gardens.

Keith Morton, Species Policy Officer at RSPB Scotland said: “It’s great that so many people took part in this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch.

“Both house sparrows and starlings, the top two birds in our 2015 results, are red list species, and so your results help us at RSPB Scotland to paint a picture of how they and other birds are faring over winter.”

Across the UK this year’s results indicate that the long term decline of house sparrows appears to have continued to slow, and it is the most commonly spotted bird in the UK.

However, they remain a conservation concern as numbers have dropped by 57 per cent since the first Birdwatch in 1979.