
We held our ninth annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch on Sunday morning. Members of the Friends of The Heath (FoTH) and the Knutsford Ornithological Society (KOS) combined to form three teams, each covering a different section of The Heath for one hour.
The birds seemed elusive this year, leading to a lower count than in previous years. We believe this was due to the cold, windy, and heavily overcast weather conditions. Nevertheless, we were pleased to record a total of seventeen species, including Nuthatch, Goldcrest, and a flock of Long-tailed Tits.
Following the counting guidelines for the Big Garden Birdwatch, each team recorded the maximum number of each bird species observed at any moment.


The table below presents our combined results from the session alongside those from the previous eight years.
Species | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
Blackbird | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 1 | |
Black-headed Gull | 4 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 5 | 2 | |||
Blue Tit | 4 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 | |
Bullfinch | 1 | 2 | ||||||||
Buzzard | 3 | 1 | ||||||||
Carrion Crow | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 2 | |
Chaffinch | 1 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||
Coal Tit | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||
Collared Dove | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Dunnock | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||||
Feral Pigeon | 2 | 3 | ||||||||
Goldcrest | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 | ||||
Goldfinch | 7 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 2 | |||||
Great Spotted Woodpecker | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
Great Tit | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | |
Jackdaw | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 7 | 21 | 2 | |
Jay | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 2 | ||||
Kestrel | 1 | |||||||||
Long-tailed Tit | 4 | 3 | 8 | 11 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 6 | |
Magpie | 4 | 6 | 3 | 10 | 1 | 11 | 2 | 5 | 2 | |
Nuthatch | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
Pied Wagtail | 2 | |||||||||
Redwing | 5 | 6 | ||||||||
Robin | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |
Song Thrush | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||
Starling | 3 | |||||||||
Treecreeper | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||
Waxwing | 2 | |||||||||
Wood Pigeon | 4 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 8 | |
Wren | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |||||
Total individuals | 47 | 48 | 53 | 64 | 31 | 59 | 45 | 77 | 37 | |
Total species | 19 | 21 | 19 | 20 | 15 | 22 | 17 | 19 | 17 |
We are grateful to everyone who participated. It enabled us to extend our long-term bird census.