My plea for help with the birds of the Hembury Fort area has borne fruit. David Wall, who lives in Tiverton, has been carrying out breeding bird surveys there for the past 25 years and was incredibly kind enough to share his data with me. What a fascinating insight his records offer to the state of our local birds. For those of you who may not know what a breeding bird survey is, this is carried out twice a year about a month apart in the spring walking two 1km lines and involves recording the number of birds of each species seen. It is true that this method only provides two snapshots a year of what birds are there and only along the transect lines, but over a period of time it provides a valuable insight into population trends.
He has recorded a total of 55 species. The most disturbing trend is that In 1997 about 30 or so species were recorded on each transect, but now this figure has fallen by about a third to around 20 since a dramatic decline started in 2005. Thankfully this figure has stayed fairly steady ever since.
There were so many surprises – it is nearly ten years since any greenfinches have been seen there, although I suspect that many may have been lured into our gardens with increasing numbers of people putting up bird feeders. The top 10 most numerous birds have been house sparrows (which have increased quite dramatically in numbers) blackbirds, wrens (numbers have fallen by half over 25 years), chaffinches, woodpigeons (surprisingly steady numbers), robins, blue tits (declining numbers), jackdaws (increasing numbers), carrion crows (declining numbers) and starlings, which have large annual swings.
There are many species which have not been seen for several years including marsh tits (2011), whitethroats (2010), wood warblers (2000), garden warblers (2009), yellowhammers (2014), mistle thrushes are now almost absent with collared doves and willow warblers declining rapidly. Another bird in slow decline is the chiffchaff.
Bullfinches are occasionally observed but are elusive, but there are a few species which are seeing a slow increase in numbers, such as coal tits, nuthatches, feral pigeons and blackcaps.
We are rapidly gearing up for the Payhembury Open Gardens on Sunday 10 July in aid of Hospiscare, so please come and support us. The bog garden should be looking its best featuring our large collection of astilbes and there will be a plant stall.
Paul 841696
