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Mainz (dpa / lrs) - More than 10,000 nature lovers in Rhineland-Palatinate took part in the counting action of the nature conservation association (Nabu) under the motto “Hour of Winter Birds”.
That was around 2000 more than a year ago.
In Rhineland-Palatinate, the house sparrow again tops the list of observations at the window and in the garden.
The number of his sightings even increased by eight percent to more than 55,000.
The great tit was seen in second place and the blue tit in fourth place a little less often.
In both tit species, the number of sightings decreased by 36 percent.
In contrast, the blackbird has stabilized in third place with a plus of four percent.
Tree sparrows, starlings, magpie and chaffinches are in fifth to eighth place.
The robin and carrion crow complete the top ten winter birds in Rhineland-Palatinate.
This time, special attention was paid to the blue tit, which suffered from an epidemic last spring caused by the bacterium Suttonella ornithocola.
At the “Garden Birds Hour” in May 2020, significantly fewer blue tits were observed.
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Whether and how the blue tit death also affected the census in January has yet to be evaluated with a regional analysis, explained the Nabu.
"As in the very mild winter of 2017, many typical feeding place visitors made themselves scarce, in addition to titmice and tailed titmouse, nuthatches, bullfinches and grosbeak."
The otherwise usual influx of birds from the north of these species probably did not take place in the winter, which was very mild across Europe until shortly before the count.