The house sparrow remains at the top of the rankings with almost 1.2 million sightings throughout the weekend of the Big Garden Birdwatch, which took place in January this year. Despite this positive news, the results revealed a mixed picture for the nation’s favourite birds.

Almost half a million people across the UK spent an hour watching the birds that visit their garden or outdoor space as a part of the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, counting more than 7.5 million birds in total.

For many people, garden birds remain an important link to nature and the RSPB wants to do more to increase this connection to help both wildlife and people.

The latest results from the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch have revealed a mixed picture for the UK’s garden birdlife with a worrying 15 of the top 20 species returning fewer sightings in gardens across the country than in the previous year.

Now in its 40th year, the Big Garden Birdwatch is a chance for people of all ages to count the number of birds that visit their garden helping the RSPB build up a picture of how they are doing.

The event, held over the last weekend in January, revealed the house sparrow held on to its number one spot, while there was a decrease in garden sightings of wrens and long-tailed tits, two of the smallest species to visit our gardens.

Long-tailed tits decreased by more than 27 per cent and wrens by 17 per cent in 2019 after being counted in particularly large number in 2018.

Over its four decades, Big Garden Birdwatch has highlighted the winners and losers in the garden bird world.

It was first to alert the RSPB to the decline in song thrush numbers.

The house sparrow remained at the top of the Big Garden Birdwatch rankings as the most commonly seen garden birds with more than 1.2 million recorded sightings throughout the weekend.

Starling held down the second spot once more, with the blue tit moving up one spot to round off the top three.

For a full round-up of all the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch results and to see which birds were visiting gardens where you live, visit rspb.org.uk/birdwatch.