birdwatch

She said: "All of us at BirdWatch Ireland are thrilled with how well this small but resilient colony has done this year.

RSPB Scotland senior species policy officer Keith Morton said since it started 40 years ago, the birdwatch survey had painted a positive picture for birds such as wood pigeon and coal tit, while revealing alarming declines for species such as song thrush, starlings, and house sparrows.

Over the last 40 years, 8 million hours have been spent watching birds for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, with 130 million birds counted.

The Birdwatch also shone a light on the declines of house sparrows and starlings.

Now in its 39th year, the Birdwatch is a chance for people of all ages to count the number of bird that visit their garden helping the RSPB build up a picture of how they are doing.

The RSPB will be on hand at Wallsend Park, North Tyneside on Saturday from 10am-3pm with help in taking part in the Birdwatch and advice on attracting garden wildlife.

Close to half-a-million people took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch in 2017 counting more than eight million birds and providing valuable information about the wildlife using our gardens in winter.

The starling remained top of the Big Garden Birdwatch rankings, with house sparrow and blackbird rounding off the top three.

In just one hour you can provide valuable information to the Since the Big Garden Birdwatch began almost 40 years ago, hundreds of thousands of people have been involved, providing an amazing insight into how our wildlife is faring.

Long-Experts are linking the increase to the mild weather in the months leading up to the 2016 Birdwatch. Small, insect-eating birds like longtailed tits are particularly susceptible to the cold as the food they rely on is hard to come by in frosts and snow.

Thousands of keen twitchers flocked to gardens and parks throughout the North East to join in a mass birdwatch this weekend.

On the weekend of January 24-25, the RSPB is holding its 36th annual Big Garden Birdwatch event, which gives a snapshot of garden bird populations each winter.

This very British love of garden birds is celebrated each winter with the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. The event is now the biggest garden wildlife survey in the world with a staggering 600,000 people peering through their windows to count sparrows, tits and finches last year alone.

Martin M Jones Butetown, Cardiff Birdwatch is back next Saturday and Sunday, giving people across the UK the chance to be part of the world's biggest wildlife survey.

Forty per cent of schools taking part in the RSPB's Big Schools' Birdwatch reported seeing black headed gulls, 21.7 per cent saw common gulls and 10.3 per cent saw herring gulls.