Milder winters, fewer hedgerows, the use of pesticides and the growing popularity of wooden decking in gardens are all thought to have fuelled the long-term decline of some species.

However, the warmer weather attracted more finches, especially the colourful goldfinch which made the top 10 for the first time.

"It has definitely been a good winter for finches," said RSPB spokesman Dr Andre Farrar. "We are seeing numbers of goldfinches swell because our milder winters encourage them to stay here instead of going to southern Europe." The goldfinch is a sociable bird with a bright red face, yellow wing patches and a twittering song. They eat insects and like thistle seeds.

Nearly 400,000 people counted six million birds across 228,000 gardens over the weekend of Jan. 26 and 27 for the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, a survey that began in 1979.

The most common garden bird was the house sparrow, while song thrush numbers rose 80 percent thanks to the wet summer that boosted the number of slugs, worms and snails.

Among the more unusual birds spotted were the firecrest, one of Britain's smallest birds; the red kite, a reddish bird of prey and the little egret, a small heron with a black bill.

Full survey results are online: www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch

Here are the top 10 with the average number of birds spotted per garden in brackets:

1) House sparrow (3.6) 2) Starling (3.4) 3) Blackbird (2.5) 4) Blue tit (2.3) 5) Chaffinch (2.2) 6) Woodpigeon (1.5) 7) Collared dove (1.4) 8) Robin (1.26) 9) Great tit (1.25) 10) Goldfinch (1.2)