The birds

The Big Garden Birdwatch 2025 results and related research digests

Hello. A warm welcome to Compassionate Nature, the weekly research digest of psychological research relating to the topics of nature connection and compassion. A short retrospective edition this week following the results of the RSPB 2025 Big Garden Birdwatch.

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“And yet, they’re still scruffy, which makes me love them even more. In my garden, they have an air of being a bit unwashed. Of having just got out of bed, they’re crumpled, somehow. There’s always a feather out of place…”

Taken from the Into The Red book, the words of Kate Bradbury on the UK’s most common bird opens up this reflective edition of previous research digests relating to birds.

My research and writing time has been a bit limited this week for various reasons, mainly as we are at the stage in the re-development of the garden when planting up the new borders is taking a lot of time. And not sure who suggested it, but oh my, painting fence panels takes a long time!

However the time in the garden is providing lots of opportunities to engage with nature, especially birds. While working in the garden we have been serenaded across the day by bird-song, as well as being joined in our work at times by a pair of robins. They have also been busy each morning collecting bits of garden material for nesting. A wood pigeon has been a regular visitor of an evening, after the work for the day has been done. The pigeon wanders around the garden as if inspecting our work, with a prevailing air of authority as it appears to check the quality of the planting. So far we appear to have met his standards.

Aside from all this activity, this week also saw the release by the Royal Society of Birds (RSPB) of the annual Big Garden Birdwatch results.

Photo by Tobias Roth on Unsplash

The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch event has been running since 1979 and is one of the world’s largest citizen science projects. The 2025 results show the UK top ten remains similar to the last few years, with only the wood pigeon and starling swapping places. The top five birds reported in the 2025 survey are

1. House Sparrow

2. Blue Tit

3. Wood Pigeon

4. Starling

5. Blackbird

However, would it surprise you that two of these common birds feature in the British Trust for Ornithology Into the Red book ? Both the house sparrow and starling are included due to a red status on breeding populations. You can use a tool on the RSPB site to compare results and from a quick comparison of the 2022 to 2025 data, all of the top 5 birds have lower sightings reported. For example the number of sparrows in 2022 was nearly 1.8 million compared to 1.2 million in 2025.

We may think our bird populations are similar to past years, but most are in decline and our perspective on current numbers to previous years is part of the shifting baseline theory. This suggests the concerning phenomenon that as nature and the environment degrades our generational perception of what is normal is lowered, without the recognition of what is being rapidly lost.

This is why citizen science projects such as the Big Garden Birdwatch and the Big Butterfly Count are important to help track populations and help towards addressing that lost recognition. In this Compassionate Nature edition from last year I looked at what citizen science projects are and how taking part not only supports research, in doing so there are wellbeing benefits. Based on the studies reviewed these benefits include a greater sense of nature connection, increased levels of positive emotions and short-term reductions in levels of anxiety and stress. They may also lead to increased involvement in nature conservation and more pro-environmental behaviours.

Birdwatching also featured in an edition last year, with the studies included in that digest illustrating it as an accessible activity that can help encourage a connection with nature beyond just contact. A wider variety of bird species may provide more positive emotions, while thinking about how you feel when spotting a bird may also foster a deeper connection and positive emotional response. I really liked the German study that looked at how bird feeding and bird watching could support the health and wellbeing of residents in a nursing home. Some simple additions and adaptations in the garden appeared to provide a long-term benefit to the residents mental and physical health.

For me one of the biggest natural joys is bird-song, which an edition from earlier this year looked at. The studies in that digest suggested that greater diversity in bird-song may invoke more positive emotions and corresponding physiological responses were indicative of reduced stress and increased mental restoration.

On a related theme, I also recently watched the wonderful Birdsong documentary, which tells of the work of Seán Ronayne who is trying to record all the birds in Ireland. It is a gentle, life-affirming film which shows the joy from bird-song as well as the challenges facing a lot of species. It has some brilliant moments in it, perhaps none more so than the starling murmuration which is just breath-taking. This link includes ways to watch the documentary (the trailer on YouTube is below) while this 2024 interview with Seán provides more background on his work.

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The previous editions of Compassionate Nature all highlight the wellbeing benefits and sense of nature connection that hearing and watching birds can foster. This illustrates a foundation of nature connection for me - a simple joy such as bird-song can help us to notice and raise our awareness of nature, which in turn may lead to action to support it more. And one way to do so is to join in with citizen science projects, they really do contribute to our understanding of the state of the natural environment.

If you have a garden please do what you can to help encourage and support the feathered visitors to it. The RSPB has some great hints and tips on how to do so.

Our local birds may appear to be doing well, but in reality most species are struggling, with concerns of declining populations. And can you imagine a world without bird-song? I can’t.

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Thanks ever so much for reading, hopefully next week’s edition will be back to the usual review format of recently published studies. Until then, look after yourself.

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