More than 400 volunteers have counted birds in recent days and discovered surprising things. The volunteers swarmed out between Thursday and Sunday to catch the feathered animals as part of the “Hour of Winter Birds” – in their gardens, on the playground or in the park.
The result: about 8,000 birds and 80 bird species were counted in 120 Swiss municipalities. According to the interim report, most sightings were made of the house sparrow, followed by the carrion crow and the tree sparrow.
BirdLife is delighted that the house sparrow is so common in Switzerland: the sparrow is becoming increasingly rare in our neighboring countries Germany, Austria and France.
The winter birds were recorded not only according to their numbers, but also according to their distribution: the most common bird in the settlements is the great tit – it was discovered in almost nine out of ten gardens. In eight out of ten gardens, the blue tit flew around and in 75 percent of the gardens, bird watchers encountered the blackbird, which was still at the top in 2022.
This year it is striking that a lot of birds were observed that are actually not in “season” at all – in other words, they would normally stay in the warmer south. But because of the warm winter, wagtails, black redstarts, hedge sparrows, song thrushes, firecrests and chiffchaff feel equally at home here.
The press release states: “With global warming, they will increasingly stay in Switzerland in greater numbers all year round. The next editions of the large Swiss hands-on campaign will show how fast this adjustment process is going.”
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Source: Blick
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