This weekend up and down the country, thousands of people will be sat by their windows counting birds. It’s the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch weekend again – are you going to be counting too?
The Big Garden Birdwatch has been counting birds since 1979, giving the RSPB lots of data on trends in the bird species visiting our gardens. Among the top 15 birds spotted last year were blackbirds, blue tits, goldfinches and sparrows. Over the years the count has picked up declines in numbers of blackbirds, robins, house sparrows and mistle thrushes, and last year the lowest number of starlings for 30 years was recorded. At the same time, numbers of magpies, wrens and collared doves have increased.
The birdwatch is a great example of ‘citizen science’ – basically getting you and me to help collect data that will contribute to science research. We’ll be doing our bit tomorrow – sitting at the kitchen window for an hour and hoping to see more than just sparrows on the bird feeders. There’s nothing wrong with sparrows, of course, we just seem to have an awful lot of them here and very little else dares approach the food when there’s a gang of sparrows feeding. In an attempt to lure more birds into the garden I’ve been buying a range of food for their breakfast. Along with the usual seed mix, fat balls and peanuts, I’ve invested in some niger seed to try to attract the goldfinches down from the tree where they sit and watch the sparrows eating. We’ll see if it works…
The Garden Deli 
Have fun! Our watch was in early January, but the results haven’t been published yet. And then there’s another in May. I’m not very good at identifying birds, but might try next time round, as my neighbour always tells me to join in!
Identifying birds isn’t my strong point either – I’m OK with the common garden birds, so it’s probably a good thing that we don’t get anything more exotic than sparrows!
We shall do be doing our bit this weekend. The bad weather has brought loads of birds into our garden – we find that goldfinches just adore sunflower hearts but didn’t take to niger seed. I expect all the unusual birds we have had over the past couple of weeks will disappear over the weekend.
We can sit for the full hour and see hardly any birds, then as soon as we finish counting they all seem to appear from nowhere!
I’ll be looking too. We have had a little flock of 5 or 6 redwings in the garden for the last few days, pecking around the winter brassicas under the shelter of the environmesh. I hope they will stay a bit longer for their own good. Very poor forecast for us for the next week, so let’s hope I see something of interest!
Haven’t seen any redwings this year, although there’s supposed to be lots about. We had a thrush family in the garden all summer (lots of snails to eat), but they’ve all disappeared over the winter – I’m hoping they come back with the better weather.
I didn’t have time today so I’m going to join in tomorrow. I’m sure will get the normal pheasants, blackbirds and chaffinches… but we have a pair of Goldcrests that I hope to spy!!
Did you see the goldcrests? You’re lucky to have such lovely birds – we seem to be running a drop-in centre for woodpigeons here!
I think our bird watch in the US is at Christmas – one of those things I’ve thought about doing, but never actually done…Hope you got more than just sparrows!
A robin and a couple of blackbirds joined the sparrows – oh and a local pheasant who has taken to hanging out in our garden to avoid the guns!