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Chaffinches appeared in the lists of top ten birds spotted in many counties in the south-west of England. Picture by S Tranter.

COLOURFUL finches visiting gardens in the south-west are at their highest numbers for five years, according to the results of the RSPB's Big Garden bird watch this year.

Finches such as chaffinches, goldfinches and greenfinches appeared in the lists of top ten birds spotted in many of the counties in the South West of England including Wiltshire and Hampshire.

Tony Whitehead, of the RSPB, said: "It's definitely been a good winter for finches, with lots more chaffinches around in particular.

"Another welcome sight this year in many gardens was the brambling, a winter migrant finch from northern and eastern Europe, which turned up in many more gardens than normal. We're seeing numbers of goldfinches swell because our milder winters encourage them to stay here instead of going to southern Europe. Our gardens can be very welcoming to finches, especially where nyjer seed is provided and thistles and teasels left to grow which also provide food."

In Wiltshire, more than 6,000 people took part in the survey, which ranked the house sparrow at the top of the list with an average of 3.8 seen per garden.

This was closely followed by starlings, chaffinches, blackbirds and blue tits.

In Hampshire gardens, blue tits topped the list with an average of 2.61 per garden.

Blackbirds, house sparrows, woodpigeons and starlings were also the most spotted birds. And in Dorset house sparrows, blackbirds, chaffinches, blue tits and starlings were the most seen birds.

Despite house sparrows appearing in the top ten spotted birds in Wiltshire, Hampshire and Dorset gardens, there is a continued decrease in house sparrow sightings across the UK.

Tony Whitehead added: "House sparrow declines are patchy. In the east of the UK they appear to have decreased more sharply than in the west and they appear still to be relatively abundant in some parts of the region. But we need to monitor the situation carefully which is why it's great so many people took part in the Big Garden bird watch this year."

Over the weekends of January 26 and 27, almost 400,000 people counted more than six million birds across 228,000 gardens as part of the bird watch.

The full UK results are available on the RSPB website at www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch.

2:45pm Thursday 10th April 2008

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