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Germany’s Winter Bird Count Finds Fewer Sparrows as Coal Tit Tops Local Rankings

Nabu says this year’s enlarged dataset confirms a years-long drop in birds per garden.

Overview

  • Volunteers counted 3,246,172 birds in 101,318 gardens, with 144,252 participants taking part, markedly more than last year.
  • House sparrow numbers declined about 15 percent nationwide, with a sharper 26 percent drop reported in North Rhine-Westphalia.
  • The coal tit displaced the house sparrow in several regional tables, taking the top spot in Niedersachsen and leading many local lists.
  • Long-term monitoring shows a sustained fall in garden-bird abundance, from 46.2 birds per site in 2011 to roughly 30 now.
  • Some species rebounded regionally, including a roughly 14 percent rise in blackbird sightings and higher goldcrest counts in forested counties.