House sparrows were in the top five most frequently spotted birds across all 112 UK local areas and they were number one in Dorset, which was consistent with results for the county last year.<\/p>\n
Blue tits, starlings, woodpigeons, and great tits make up the rest of Dorset’s top five, but it did see a reduction in blackbirds – down 25% in the county – which reflects the national picture of decline for the common bird.<\/p>\n
Tits had a soaring start to the year with numbers up compared to the previous 12 months.<\/p>\n
Blue tits were the most frequently spotted birds in gardens across Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.<\/p>\n
In Berkshire its green spaces were identical to those in 2025 with the same species of birds flocking to the county this year.<\/p>\n
Blue tits and woodpigeons were most popular with house sparrows starlings and great tits also spotted.<\/p>\n
These same species were clocked by birdwatchers in Hampshire, which also had magpies recorded by local gardeners.<\/p>\n
There was good news for the long-tailed tits on the Isle of Wight, where there was a more than 38% increase in sightings of the birds since 2025.<\/p>\n
The species is easily recognisable with a distinctive blush, black and white colouring.<\/p>\n
Islanders also noted the ever-popular blue tits and woodpigeons along with robins and jackdaws.<\/p>\n
In Oxfordshire, sightings of jackdaws, a small black crow with a distinctive silvery sheen to the back of its head, were up and it was also a positive tale for the goldfinch population.<\/p>\n
The county saw an increase in sightings from last year and it had become the fifth most spotted bird in the area, with blue tits and house sparrows topping Oxfordshire’s list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House sparrows were in the top five most frequently spotted birds across all 112 UK local areas and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-523270","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}