Throstle at full throttle

[blacknest]

Hi
I've had a certain complacency every time I read of the plight of the Song Thrush and its declining population. Generally between spring and summer there are five or six on our lawn any morning and they dominate the dawn chorus with their songs.
This year I've noticed a change: I might see one on the lawn every other day.
Ironically I've completely given up slug pellets and we live in a garden bordered only by forest and untreated rough grass: so no farmers are spraying nast stuff anywhere near us.
Much of the woodland has been thinned and has a good growth of ideal nesting scrub (hawthorn, hazel, blackthorn etc) and even the predation would seem to have declined since Daisy our old cat went to that great hunting ground in the sky.
So it seems the immediate are has perfect and probably improving conditions for Song Thrushes. Yet the numbers are going down
How concerning is the current National trend?
Are there any credible theories yet as to the cause of this decline?
Did they suffer a lot in cold weather (they are shy and will not generally visit our bird feeding area)
I'd like to hear what people have to say on this topic

[Rob_D]

Hi Blacknest. Very sorry to hear that they've become less common in your garden. It seems that the long-term national trend is actually not bad at all in the last 10 years. It is worth looking at the actual data behind the alerts of declining populations to understand what is actually going on - I find the BTO website really good for doing that.

From the data, if you accept that they are now alot less common than 40 years ago, maybe you wouldn't actually be too concerned? They also seem to be OK in Europe too. That said, I don't see them nearly often enough.

BTO - Breeding Birds of the Wider Countryside: Song Thrush

http://www.bto.org/research/services...inson_etal.htm

[blacknest]

Thanks Rob_D
I'm glad to hear that the trend nationally is stabilising or recovering a bit. I'm hoping the relative absence I'm noting right now is just temporary...maybe they'll all be back when first clutch of eggs is hatched and they have young to feed?
I'll make an effort to observe and keep closer track of the numbers.
Regards

PS some seriously meaty old stats on that BTO page!!!
Most of the habitat factors like pasture, scrub, damp soil in summer are all perfect here. But it does mention 1st winter survival, so maybe the numbers took a bit of a bashing this year when we had hard frost almost continuously in Jan and heavy snow in Feb

[blacknest]

Definitely less than last year, which I'd put down to the hard winter: doubly hard in our chilly little frost hollow. But I think when I wrote the original post what I was mainly experiencing was Song Thrushes were busy nesting & keeping out of sight. Thereafter they have certainly been a prominant component of the dawn chorus and since the eggs hatched there have been 2 or 3 adults every day on the lawn + now the odd fledgeling.
Formerly it might have been 5 or 6 at one time.
Hopefully the sunshine , modest showers and lush growth with booming populations of "pests" in the garden will make it a good breeding year with lots of fat, healthy young birds going into the winter.