Common Garden Birds - then and now

[Duncan McCaskill <>]

Its nearly then end of another Garden Bird Survey year. The week starting today is the last reporting week of the year and is 8 days long. The first week of the new year starts on Thursday July 3.

Here, for your interest, is a comparison of the top 30 birds for the first year of the survey (1981-82) and the last year of the survey (2012-13), ranked by the abundance measure A. (A is the average number of birds recorded each site each week, including zero records). Also shown is the reporting rate (R) and distribution (F). (All measures are explained in the Annual Bird Report.)

Species with a big decline in A are coloured red, species with a big increase in A are coloured blue. For these tables (unlike the ones the Annual Bird Report) I have excluded rural GBS sites.

Garden Birds, Top 30 by Abundance (Urban Sites only) 1981-82
Rank	Bird	2012-13 Rank	A	R %	F  %
1	Common Starling	20	15.44	73	100
2	House Sparrow	8	8.04	75	100
3	Galah	2	6.77	70	100
4	Yellow-faced Honeyeater	24	5.73	28	83
5	Silvereye	3	5.62	64	92
6	Pied Currawong	4	4.43	66	92
7	Australian Magpie	5	2.68	85	100
8	Sulphur-crested Cockatoo	1	2.37	42	92
9	White-naped Honeyeater	52	2.29	13	75
10	Crimson Rosella	6	2.00	58	100
11	Rock Dove	13	1.78	24	73
12	Yellow-rumped Thornbill	21	1.76	41	94
13	Magpie-lark	10	1.67	62	98
14	Eastern Rosella	19	1.58	58	96
15	Silver Gull	56	1.51	2	10
16	Red Wattlebird	9	1.43	54	94
17	Noisy Friarbird	51	1.41	46	96
18	Common Blackbird	26	1.15	51	81
19	Spotted Pardalote	27	1.12	26	73
20	Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike	44	1.00	51	96
21	Striated Pardalote	32	0.97	30	58
22	Australian Raven	16	0.84	43	87
23	Gang-gang Cockatoo	18	0.80	25	75
24	White-throated Needletail	81	0.78	2	29
25	Laughing Kookaburra	45	0.64	35	85
26	Fuscous Honeyeater	126	0.62	9	44
27	European Goldfinch	50	0.62	22	73
28	Red-rumped Parrot	28	0.44	13	46
29	Eastern Spinebill	30	0.43	22	79
30	Willie Wagtail	47	0.39	29	96

Garden Birds, Top 30 by Abundance (Urban Sites only) 2012-13
Rank	Bird	1981-82 Rank	A	R %	F  %
1	Sulphur-crested Cockatoo	8	8.53	88	100
2	Galah	3	6.57	82	100
3	Silvereye	5	4.17	54	93
4	Pied Currawong	6	3.92	85	97
5	Australian Magpie	7	3.53	91	100
6	Crimson Rosella	10	3.28	85	100
7	Crested Pigeon	129	3.07	77	100
8	House Sparrow	2	3.05	40	70
9	Red Wattlebird	16	2.31	84	99
10	Magpie-lark	13	1.98	77	99
11	Superb Fairy-wren	35	1.89	48	93
12	Little Corella	N/A	1.82	17	67
13	Rock Dove	11	1.76	21	51
14	Australian King-Parrot	32	1.67	49	90
15	Eurasian Coot	43	1.65	3	6
16	Australian Raven	22	1.44	61	99
17	Common Myna	36	1.38	39	80
18	Gang-gang Cockatoo	23	1.30	26	61
19	Eastern Rosella	14	1.24	48	94
20	Common Starling	1	1.22	21	65
21	Yellow-rumped Thornbill	12	0.96	22	65
22	Weebill	33	0.93	30	54
23	Red-browed Finch	56	0.91	10	41
24	Yellow-faced Honeyeater	4	0.88	11	62
25	Australian Wood Duck	73	0.82	9	33
26	Common Blackbird	18	0.79	45	88
27	Spotted Pardalote	19	0.69	32	75
28	Red-rumped Parrot	28	0.62	13	43
29	Noisy Miner	31	0.56	16	36
30	Eastern Spinebill	29	0.55	39	87

Notes:

• Little Corella wasn't recorded at all in 1981-82 and is now the 12th most abundant bird.
• Most of the most abundant birds are also widely distributed (high F) apart from Silver Gull which was reported in huge numbers from a few sites in 81/82 and Eurasian Coot which is high in the most recent year because one site seems to be mostly Coot.
• The GBS period covered the rise of the Crested Pigeon from almost nothing.
• Many Honeyeaters have declined.
• Starlings & Sparrows have declined.
• The A measure is not a good indicator of landscape abundance when comparing wide ranging flocking birds like cockatoos against territorial birds like Magpies. Many sites would be counting the same large flocks of cockatoos, but there would be very little double counting of Magpies.

Duncan McCaskill

Garden Bird Survey Coordinator