Wildlife Welfare

Wild Song Thrush Garden Welfare

Song thrush populations have declined significantly from British farmland and gardens, requiring habitat and food provision to support recovery.

Key Facts

UK song thrush populations declined by 54% between 1970 and 2016
Song thrushes are famous for using stones as anvils to break open snails
Decline in garden snail populations from pesticide use reduces prey availability
Ground feeding areas with leaf litter provide access to invertebrate prey
Nest sites in dense shrubs are increasingly scarce in tidied gardens

Welfare Considerations

Song thrushes denied sufficient invertebrate prey face nutritional stress and breeding failure. Reducing pesticide use in gardens restores the snail and earthworm populations that are central to song thrush diet. Providing ground-level leaf litter and dense shrubs for nesting directly supports song thrush welfare by meeting their nutritional and breeding habitat needs.

What You Can Do

Reduce pesticide use to restore invertebrate prey for song thrushes
Provide ground-level leaf litter as foraging habitat in gardens
Plant dense shrubs that provide song thrush nest sites