Common garden birds

Each year the RSPB organises the Big Garden Birdwatch, an annual event that uses volunteers to count the birds they see in their garden to come up with a list of the 10 most common garden birds in the UK.

The 10 most common garden birds

According to the 2024 Big Garden Birdwatch the most common garden birds in the UK are:

10. Long-tailed tit
9. Magpie
8. Goldfinch
7. Great tit
6. Robin 
5. Blackbird
4. Woodpigeon
3. Blue tit
2.Starling
1. House sparrow

The results are not wildly different from the 2020 results, with house sparrows at the top, and starlings and blue tit swapping places.  Woodpigeons, blackbirds and great tits remain stationary, with goldfinch and robins also swapping . The long-tailed tit is hanging on in the top 10, after swapping with the magpie, which now sits at number nine.

Other common garden birds

Large birds such as carrion crows, collared doves and jackdaws are also often seen, particularly if you have an open bird table or large lawn. These distinctive birds can be hard to miss when they appear and are a familiar sight to most of us.

More numerous but harder to spot are the several species of small, brown birds that regularly show up at the bird feeder.

The wren is the UK's most common bird; one of the UK’s smallest birds with its small, rounded body and upright tail it is often seen in gardens, but is more populous in rural areas. It is particularly noticeable in spring when male wrens build multiple nests for the female to choose from. A similar but more colourful and even smaller bird is the goldcrest, although this little bird is less often seen in gardens. 

Another common garden bird is the dunnock, a small brown and grey bird with mottled feathers which provide excellent camouflage, making it hard to spot, although competing males can put on quite a display.

Female blackbirds can often be harder to identify due to their drab colouring, compared to the males, but have beautifully delicate markings if you look closely.

Song thrushes were once a very popular sight in gardens but their numbers are in serious decline, making them much less likely to visit your garden.

As well as blue tits and great tits, coal tits and long-tailed tits are regular visitors and can usually be seen in small flocks. Blue tits, great tits and coal tits might be persuaded to use a well-chosen nest box, but long-tailed tits prefer to build their nests out of lichen and spider webs in hedgerows, the shape of which has led so some amusing nicknames such as Oven builder, Bum barrel and Poke pudding. Read more about long-tailed tits.