THE humble house sparrow is back. The world's biggest garden survey has put the little bird at number one spot in Greater Manchester gardens.
The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch showed that although figures for sparrows are down on 26 years ago - when the first survey took place - the bird numbers have been relatively stable.
With a national average of 4.56 sparrows seen per garden this year, compared to an average of 10 in 1979, the house sparrow has declined by 54 per cent.
Having dropped off the top spot nationally last year, the starling continued to decline in 2005, with numbers per garden down almost to a quarter of those recorded in gardens in the first Big Garden Birdwatch survey.
More than 4,000 people in Greater Manchester watched their gardens and local parks during Birdwatch on January 29-30, with more than 2,300 gardens being surveyed across the county. There was an average of 4.22 house sparrows seen per garden with the starling coming in at second place (3.52) and in third place was the blue tit (2.77).
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