garden bird list

12 Everyday birds
Blackbird, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Robin, Collared Dove, Dunnock, Starling, Woodpigeon, Wren, Magpie ( magpies sometimes attack nestlings but I forgive them because they also act as guards against the local cats and one day saw off the heron that was after the fish) ,
Greenfinch, Crow

9 Birds I get excited about
House Sparrow (because unbelievably they are getting rare in London)
Long-tailed Tit (they're a kind of bonus because they come by the dozen - we had a party through today)
Chaffinch (not rare but we only got them in the garden for the first time this winter)
Blackcap (mysterious unseen opera singers in the bushes next door)
Great Spotted Woodpecker (3 times - loves the peanuts)
Jay (cos they're so beautiful)
Goldcrest (tiny bird, tiny voice - sips from the pond)
Sparrowhawk (wow factor 10!)
heron (although this is negative excitement and usually entails me rushing out to see if the fish are alright)

11 Birds that fly over but don't stop
kestrel
ducks, canada geese, cormorants (heading for the lea valley)
swifts, house martins
black headed gulls, lesser black backed gulls, herring gulls (great V line skeins in the sunset)
a parakeet

It set me wondering about how garden birds have over 40+ years. House sparrows and song thrushes are the big losers - more or less vanished. Blackbirds, wood pigeons, robins, blue tits and great tits, wrens and dunnocks pretty much the same. The rarest bird we had in the garden as a child was a green woodpecker that made a brief visit to an ant nest one year. The memory has that sureal quality where you're not 100% sure it isn't a dream.
Gainers- Collared doves were a mega rarity in the uk (a pair blew in from the continent in the 1950s and the rest as they say is history). Magpies, crows, sparrowhawks and kestrels etc were still being shot. Herons - no. cormorants were seaside birds, blackcaps, chaffinches, greenfinches were country birds, goldcrests and great spots and long tailed tits were rare anywhere (now they're all over the park).
So more winners than losers all told. But the losers are big ones - how can house sparrows vanish from London?? And every spring I miss hearing the song thrush.