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Big Garden Birdwatch, the mass public survey led by the RSPB, shows surprise comeback for goldcrests, tits and sparrows
• Reader photos of garden birds
Small birds have made a comeback this year after a dramatic decline in their numbers last spring, according to findings from the wildlife survey Big Garden Birdwatch.
Experts feared the worst after last year's results, which showed that the coldest winter for 30 years, in 2009- 10, had been disastrous for small birds in Britain.
But the mass participation survey, launched by the RSPB, and involving more than half a million people counting birds in their garden for an hour late January, has shown that some of the species whose populations were devastated by that long, harsh, winter are bouncing back.
The findings indicate that sightings of goldcrests, the UK's smallest birds, doubled. Long-tailed tits have increased by a third, and coal tits by a quarter. Thousands of people were also lucky enough to see waxwings. These birds flock to the UK from Scandinavia in some years, and this winter there was an influx with more than 7,000 spotted in almost 1,000 gardens, making it the most popular winter for waxwings in more than 30 years.
Mark Eaton, a scientist at the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which also co-ordinates the wildife survey, said: "We knew this was going to be a bumper year for waxwings as we'd had so many reports from all over the UK. But the Big Garden Birdwatch is the first indicator of exactly how many were seen in gardens, and we're pleased that so many people got to enjoy sightings of these beautiful birds."
Richard Bashford, project manager of the Big Garden Birdwatch, said he was most surprised by the increase in small birds, which happened despite the UK's coldest December in 100 years. "We expected last year's trend to continue, and we were really concerned that this decline in small birds would continue.
"Although we had another cold winter, we had a very good breeding season due to the dry weather in April and May. This produced a lot of young, making the number of small birds higher than we had thought."
Smaller birds are particularly at risk from freezing weather and, as the temperature drops, need to eat more often throughout the day. Many smaller species can get into trouble if they do not eat for even one day.
Bashford added: "Our back gardens are some of the best places for wildlife – they mean food and shelter to small birds, so it is also likely that countryside birds came to people's garden s before the cold winter set in. We are always pushing the message that if enough people put out food and water for small birds, it really can make quite a difference."
Starling sightings, now at number two on the leaderboard, have increased by a quarter since last year, but their numbers are still down since the first Big Garden Birdwatch in 1979. The house sparrow retained its top spot for the eighth year in succession, with an average of four per garden, an increase of 10%. Numbers of blue tits have increased by 22% and great tit sightings were up by 12%.
Already the world's largest public participation wildlife event, the annual Birdwatch this year attracted more than 600,000 participants, the highest yet.
Gemma Butlin, spokesperson for the RSPB, said: "This is probably a combination of more people becoming aware about wildlife and wanting to do what they can to help. As well as being good fun for participants, we also collect really important scientific data from the findings."
In total this year, 609,177 people counted more than 10.2m birds, and more than 70 species were recorded in 300,780 gardens during the last weekend of January.
Following the success of the winter project the RSPB has launched a summer weekend survey, aiming to count migrating birds from Africa, along with grass snakes and newts.
Two years of Big Garden Birdwatch
House sparrow - 4.2 birds per garden in 2011, rise from 3.8 in 2010
Starling - 3.9, up from 3.1
Blackbird - 3.3, stayed the same3
Blue tit - 3.2, up from 2.6
Chaffinch - 2.4, up from 2.2
Wood pigeon - 1.9, stayed the same
Great tit - 1.6, up from 1.4
Goldfinch - 1.5, up from 1.3
Robin - 1.5, stayed the same
Collared Dove - 1.3, stayed the same at 1.3