They’ll happily eat peanuts, sunflower seeds and more in Irish gardens, and you can give them an extra helping hand by providing them with a nestbox. Their numbers are doing ok in Ireland, though it’s likely that they have lost much nesting habitat that they historically had in towns and villages due to new more efficient building methods. House Sparrows have an unfavourable conservation status in Europe, so are amber-listed here. House Sparrow – Amber List (84% of Irish Gardens) Don’t forget these are the birds responsible for one of nature’s greatest spectacles, their winter murmurations! If you see a Starling murmurations this winter, please let us know by logging it here. If they’re bothering you by nesting in your eaves every summer, now is a good time to put out a nestbox with a large hole and block up any gaps in your gutters to ensure they nest where you want them to nest. They’re on the Irish Amber List due to declines over the majority of their European range. Starlings are doing ok in Ireland, but we’re one of very few countries who can say that. Starling – Amber List (79% of Irish Gardens)

You might be lucky enough to have some of these birds in good numbers, but the wider picture across Ireland and Europe might be worse than you think.

In the case of some, you’ll likely be thinking “well we have plenty of them here” but bear in mind this is based on the picture across Ireland (ROI and NI) as a whole. See below for a list of birds that are on the red and Amber List of conservation concern in Ireland, that are also recorded in gardens every winter through the Irish Garden Bird Survey. If a species is stable in Ireland but undergoing serious declines in other countries, then that sounds the alarm bell for us to keep an eye on the Irish population, and it also means the Irish population is of increased importance. In addition, we consider the international picture. Whether a species is widespread or not, if we see that it’s declining by a large amount in a relatively short space of time, then it’s clearly in need of some attention. If you wait until a bird is down to a hundred pairs or less it might already be too late to save it, so as well as total numbers or breeding pairs we also examine the population trend. There are a number of ways a species can make it onto the red list (top concern) or Amber List (medium concern), and it’s not solely based on low numbers. The list utilises a traffic-light colour system to highlight species that we need to be worried about. The reality is though, you’d recognise most of the species on the list, they probably occur much closer than you might think, and there’s a very good chance you’ll have some red and amber-listed bird species in your garden this winter! You might be forgiven for thinking that it’s a list of rare birds, some of which you mightn’t have even heard of, restricted to remote islands or patches of pristine habitat that you’d have to drive and hike hours to get to. The list is a joint publication by BirdWatch Ireland and our colleagues in RSPB Northern Ireland. This year the ‘ Birds of Conservation Concern in Ireland’ list was updated based on the most recent data and research available.

House sparrow