Big Garden Birdwatch: Edinburgh Results

Big Garden Birdwatch 2011 TV ad from The RSPB on Vimeo.

At the end of January 2011, over 600,000 people spent an hour watching and recording the birds in their garden for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Now, it's the moment you've all been waiting for - the results! Which birds did best and how did Edinburgh birds compare to Glasgow City and the UK average? 

First off you'll be pleased to hear small birds bounced back in comparison to last years survey. Goldcrests (with their cute punk quiff) doubled, long-tailed tits increased by a third and coal tits by a quarter. Blue tits increased 22% and great tits by 12%. 

The most common or 'top bird' in the UK and Edinburgh was the house sparrow with an average of 4 per garden. Glasgow City's top bird was.... the feral pigeon. Now aren't you glad you live in Edinburgh?  

The second most common bird in the UK and Edinburgh was the blackbird, with so many of them about you do get the occasional nutter bird singing in the middle of the night. In Glasgow City, house sparrows are in the number 2 spot.

Starlings are number 3 for the UK and Glasgow City but strangely in Edinburgh, Starlings are down at number 6 appearing in just a quarter of gardens when compared to the rest of the UK where they appear in half of all gardens. With sparrows and starlings in our top 5 most common birds you might think things are going well for them. Actually, they're both priority species for conservation. This graph shows you the average number of starlings and house sparrows in UK gardens over the last 15 years, you can see the decline is quite startling. Starling, my darling, where did you go? 

Graph from the RSPB website

Edinburgh City has two birds that don't feature in the UK top 20, the bullfinch and siskin. In contrast the UK has more wrens and song thrushes then we do in Edinburgh. 2011 was a record year for waxwings and we're lucky enough to be in a waxwing hotspot, right here in Edinburgh.  

Graph taken from Mark Avery's RSPB Blog

Here are the results for the top 5 birds in the UK, Edinburgh and Glasgow City. You can download the results for the top 20 birds by county here

Big Garden Birdwatch 2011: UK Results

Species                 Average           Rank     % of gardens

House_Sparrow	3.77	1	64.9
Blackbird	3.28	2	96.3
Starling	3.13	3	52.3
Blue_Tit	2.58	4	83.8
Chaffinch	2.19	5	56.5

Big Garden Birdwatch 2011: Edinburgh City

Species                  Average            Rank     % of gardens

House_Sparrow	3.543	1	56.62
Blackbird	2.583	2	88.94
Blue_Tit	2.385	3	79.62
Chaffinch	2.056	4	54.74
Woodpigeon	1.859	5	70.87

Big Garden Birdwatch 2011: Glasgow City

Species                  Average            Rank     % of gardens

Feral_pigeon	3.637	1	56.88
House_Sparrow	3.594	2	58.57
Starling	3.003	3	36.61
Blue_Tit	2.715	4	82.33
Woodpigeon	2.182	5	66.00

If you missed the Big Garden Birdwatch you can listen to our birdwatch in Victoria park (atmospheric with lots of excited whispering in the bushes)

You can read why birds are brilliant in the rest of the Big Garden Birdwatch series: 

• #RSPB #BGBW part 1: Give garden birds a go 
• The RSPB BGBW 2: Birds, the universal unifier (why they're like your favorite film or book)
• The RSPB BGBW 3: How birds open doors (on meeting celebrities)
• The RSPB BGBW 4: Doing it in a Park with Greener Leith

Read about this series in the Edinburgh Guardian. Lastly, we did a valentines special on when birds go bad (blackbird torture included)

Trees company

Some time ago, Greener Leith ran The Leith Links Ask, which asked local residents to vote for three proposals that would improve Leith Links. At the time, some people were surprised that proposals to plant 'mini-nature reserves', wildflowers and establish a 'Leith Gardens' came in high on the results list. 

It's therefore interesting to see that Leithers attitudes to their parks aren't so different from people who live in the rest of the city. The City of Edinburgh Council have just released the results of their 'Parks Survey' that sought, amongst other things, to identify what people value about their parks. Here's the list of things that people said they thought were 'very important' or 'quite important':

Aspect	%
Trees and woodlands	96%
Nature reserves	94%
Presence of wildlife	93%
Grassed areas	92%
Public toilets	77%
Facilities for young people	76%
Sports facilities	74%
Signage	74%
Educational activities	72%
Formal planting	68%
Allotments	65%
History of parks information	59%
Events in parks	57%

These figures are based on the views of just over 1000 residents from all over Edinburgh. It would seem that Leithers are not the only people to value green space, wildlife and trees. As we've noted previously however, it is unfortunate that Leithers have access to a lower amount of green space than other parts of Edinburgh, and the parks, and the play facilities we do have are not of the same quality as elsewhere. 

Interestingly, the report also highlights the fact that the older people get, the less likely they are to agree with the statement, "Edinburgh's parks meet my needs." Does this mean that more thought needs to be given to making parks enjoyable and accessible for older people too? The report suggests another possible reason for this trend -  is it because older people have higher expectations of maintenance than younger folk. If this is the case, perhaps this is a case where we should listen to our elders?

You can download the whole Parks Survey Report here.

10,000 bulbs bound for Leith this Autumn

Between them, community groups in Leith plan to plant more than 10,000 crocus, snowdrop and bluebells in Leith parks this Autumn. That's an incredible undertaking. 

Friends of Montgomery Street park plan to plant 3000 mixed crocus bulbs in the park on the 11th of October. Volunteers are set to meet at 10am on the day, and according to their website only a complete deluge will deter the planting from going ahead. Drinks and biscuits are provided for willing workers, and if you have trowels or work gloves please bring them. More information on the event here.

Meanwhile, Leith Links Community Council, together with local schools, and a range of community groups, including Greener Leith are planning to plant more than 7000 bulbs over four days in late October. The community volunteer day is on the 1st of November between 2pm and 4pm. Again, all welcome, and if you have gloves and trowels, please do bring them along. Some time ago Leithers identified more flowers and a greater diversity of planting as something they'd like to see more of as part of our Leith Links Ask consultation about the future of Leith Links. It's great to see Leith Links Community Council put funding in (alongside a contribution from Greener Leith) to get improvements happening in the park.

Lastly, we should also note that the City of Edinburgh Council are also supporting both events by providing tools and staff support.

From Our Foreign Correspondent

Greener Leith has friends in many places, and so we're pleased to publish this photo that was shared with us by Eva Suba - a Hungarian, who now lives in Germany.

On this blog we've had more than one post about dogs and their impact on parks. This is because the problem of dog fouling often features on lists of priorities for public space improvements. Recently, for example, our story about the Poo-Gooder in Pilrig Park who tries to maintain a 'good poo Karma' has led Greener Leith to receive some enquiries from the press as to whether he really exists. He does, and if he wants to do newspaper interviews, perhaps he may be catapulted to local hero for his positive attitude to dog ownership? 

Anyway, back to the photo. Eva, captioned this photo 'Welcome To Germany". Whilst we hate to play up to national stereotypes, we're not sure the idea of an official 'dog park' could have originated in any other country other than Germany. It's certainly a 'dog management' tool we hadn't considered until now! 

Sadly, we can't see dog parks working here. Think we'll stick with Leith Central Community Council who, like us, are calling for more fines to be issued to lazy dog owners with bad poo karma. 

Where are the Poo-Gooders of Leith?

Dog Fouling is an emotive subject. On the one hand, there are the local residents who are rightly concerned that otherwise appealing green spaces are turned into little more than dog toilets. Nowhere is this more of a problem than in small urban parks with lots of well used childrens play facilities.

On the other hand, dog owners are a major group of park users. In fact, without them, some open spaces would be hardly used at all. It is little wonder that responsible dog owners who do pick up their dogs poo feel victimised.

Here in Leith, Montgomery Street park residents have recently been successful in their bid to have their whole park classified as a dog free zone, whilst down the road in Dalmeny Street park the local friends group encourages local dog owners to scoop the poop by organising an annual dog show. A recent week of action in the Dalmeny Street and Montgomery Street area saw council wardens go all out to try to fine irresponsible dog owners using mobile CCTV in most of the local parks.

However, even council officers admitted at this weeks Neighbourhood Partnership meeting that they had to struggle to find a clean bit of grass before they could put up their bouncy castle for the Parklife 2 event in the Dalmeny Street during the week of action.

There seems to be a growing local consensus that more enforcement action is needed to tackle the problem of dog fouling whether that's to enforce dog bans in some parks, or to issue fines direct to irresponsible dog owners. It'll be interesting to see whether an increase in the number of environmental wardens based in North Edinburgh will reverse the decline in fines issued for littering and dog fouling in recent years in Leith.

There are responsible dog owners in Leith too. Our favourite responsible dog owner, is one regular user of Pilrig Park who believes in maintaining good 'Poo Karma'. If his dog does a poo in the park, but he didn't see it, can't find it or he doesn't have any poo bags that day, this particular dog owner doesn't worry. He simply makes sure he picks up another poo that he finds the next time he's able to - even if his dog didn't do it. In this way, he ensures that he has good poo Karma at all times. If only all dog owners were so worried about their poo karma.

Anyway, the video below tells the story of how dog owners who use one Devon Park organised themselves into a group to encourage people to scoop the poop, when threatened with a dog ban from their local parks. After watching this we couldn't help but wonder, will the poo-gooders of Leith ever get organised?

Pooches in the Park 2009

Ellie, who volunteers for both the Friends of Dalmeny Street Park and Greener Leith has sent us some pics from Pooches in the Park last Sunday. She said "there were lots of happy faces both canine and human and it was bigger and better than ever, the twilight barking must have worked (you remember that from 101 dalmations)?"

"Either way, they came in all shapes and sizes, they made us laugh, the made us cry they made us cheer as they played dead, caught biscuits (even though the sun was in their eyes apparently) did tricks with footballs, leapt jumped or just looked cute!"

Awww.

Is Leith Short Of Public Open Space?

The draft Open Space Audit for Edinburgh has been published and it contains some interesting facts about how Leith compares to other parts of the city.

Firstly, Leith has the least amount of open space per person of any part of the city, a fact that must give some extra weight to our call for more open space in the proposals for regenerating Leiths waterfront. Perhaps because we have relatively little green space Leithers seem to want to make the most of it. According to the audit Leithers also also have more play facilities nearby than any other part of the city. Apparently 90% of Leithers live within 400m of a public open space.

However, as the audit has largely been completed as a desk job using satellite imagery and clever computing, there are some things that the audit cannot assess. If the space near to you is a poor quality pocket park, like the one below, how likely are you to use it? Or, if the local play facilities are run down and covered in graffiti, how likely are you to use them?

This park on Bothwell Street needs help...Most of the parks in Leith, especially the smaller ones, are looking a little ragged round the edges to say the least, so we hope this Audit will provide council officials with a good case to argue for more investment in our parks and open spaces.

The council is keen for more people to feed into the audit process. We understand that the planners are particularly keen to hear opinions from people on areas that are not high profile parks - for example cemeteries, cycle paths, and so on. There are three ways that you can have your say on the draft Open Space Audit. City planners will have a stall at Leith Festival Gala day. They'll also be running an evening workshop on Tuesday the 16th of June in Leith Academy at 6.30pm. But if you can't make either of those events, don't worry - you can have your say on-line by clicking here.

Lastly, for the map lovers amongst you, the council have produced an interactive on-line map showing all the open space in Edinburgh. You can play with it here.

Dr Bells Greenspace Survey

Dr Bells Family Centre undertook a consultation involving 100 people this September. They focussed on two main topics. Firstly they asked people about how they felt about the centre itself. They also asked people about their perceptions of the green spaces in Leith. Here's the main points of the green space part of the consultation:

Key Positives

• Well maintained Good place for walking and exercise
• Good place for kids to play Clean
• Good place for sports The Links is good
• Convenient link to city Good for cycling
• Leith festival

Key Issues

• Lack of toilets Dog litter
• Drunks/Alcoholics Poor maintenance
• Litter Youth Disturbances
• Vandalism Drug use
• No police presence Fear of Crime
• Poor drainage Not enough bins and seating

Key Points to be taken forward

• More seating Specific ‘dog zones’
• More dog ‘facilities’ More CCTV/better lighting
• More facilities e.g. toilets, cafes Develop cycle paths
• Increase police presence/park wardens (Improve safety and security)
• Better maintenance(cleaning, play areas)

To some extent these results echo some of the findings of the Leith Links Ask. It's clear that people value the green spaces of Leith as places to exercise and play. People are keen to see better facilities in the parks, and better infrastructure. However, it's clear that there's a perception that the council are not getting some of the basic maintenance right, particularly with regards to play parks and community safety. Overall the consultation notes that a majority of people are broadly happy with the Dr Bells Centre, and indeed the quality of life that Leith provides.

It's great to see a commitment from Dr Bells to work to represent the interests of children and families in this area and Greener Leith has already had some contact with them on this issue. Hopefully, we'll end up working together to try to tackle some of these points.