As of: February 3, 2024, 9:38 p.m
By: Stephanie Uehlein
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The bullfinch placed comparatively high in the district.
© E. Kraus/LBV
During the “Hour of Winter Birds” in the district, an average of around 32 birds were spotted at the 371 counting locations, four more than in the previous year.
An upward trend was also noted for the whole of Bavaria, but according to the State Association for Bird and Nature Conservation, the situation is not rosy.
District
- 555 participants, 112 more than last year, took part in the “Hour of the Winter Birds” campaign in the Weilheim-Schongau district and counted almost 12,000 birds.
As in 2023, the house sparrow was at the top of the bird top ten (with 1,820 animals).
Great tits and blue tits follow in second and third place.
The latter pushed last year's third-placed tree sparrow into fourth place.
A special feature in the district: The Gimpel, which came in 17th place in Bavaria, ended up in 8th place.
The house sparrow took first place. © Zdenek Tunka/Bildarchiv LBV
436 bullfinches – also known as bullfinches – were included in the statistics at the “Hour of the Winter Birds”.
“The bullfinch is native to Bavaria all year round, but this year it has received reinforcements from the northern countries.
There were freezing temperatures and snow there at the time of the counting weekend, which drove some species all the way to Bavaria in search of food,” said Franziska Back from the State Association for Bird and Nature Conservation (LBV), which organized the campaign together with its partner NABU.
The bird counters were active for one hour each from January 5th to 7th.
The 555 participants from the district counted in 371 gardens and other areas and spotted an average of 32 birds.
This number was 28 last year.
The great spotted woodpecker came in 14th place in the district's “Hour of Winter Birds” bird count (counted 265 times).
© Ingo Rittscher/LBV image archive
Although the average value also rose for the whole of Bavaria (by a good two to around 32), according to the LBV, the situation is not rosy.
“Annual fluctuations in the number of birds are to be expected.
“But it is important to keep an eye on the long-term trend in the bird population,” bird expert Angelika Nelson is quoted as saying in a press release.
And according to the LBV, this development “unfortunately doesn’t look so positive” in Bavaria: Since the start of the campaign, the number of animals registered per garden has been steadily decreasing.
The colorful bird activity on the counting weekend at the beginning of January is probably also due to the many feeding places in gardens and on balconies.
93 percent of participants said they fed birds.
The results list for the district includes 69 bird species
The blackbird (5th place), the chaffinch (6th), the siskin (7th), the magpie (9th) and the greenfinch (10th) also made it into the top ten in the district.
The results table for Weilheim-Schongau includes a total of 69 species - including well-known ones such as red-breasted robins and great spotted woodpeckers as well as lesser-known ones such as dunnocks and treecreepers.
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The next counting campaign
by LBV and NABU, the “Hour of the Garden Birds”, will take place from May 9th to 12th.
As with the “Hour of the Winter Birds”, anyone interested can take part.
Further information - including profiles of common garden birds - can be found at https://www.lbv.de/mitmachen/stunde-der-gartenvoegel/.
Sightings are reported online.
The siskin was counted 567 times and came 7th in the district. © Reinhold Liebert /LBV
By the way: Everything from the region is also available in our regular Schongau newsletter.
And in our Weilheim-Penzberg newsletter.