Well we’re not quite ready for a Big Year just yet, but since we literally are the last house on the edge of town so semi rural, we really ought to be experiencing the joy of more birds than we currently are.
We only got into it recently when I bought a bird table after using this place for free parking whilst visiting the dinghy show then feeling guilty, and noticing that we haven’t been woken at five in the morning with the dawn chorus like we used to and there have been one or two items in the press about it, so first hand observation is obviously the best way to enlightenment.
We’ve had ducks, pheasants (we’re next to a big estate where they breed them to shoot), heron (nicked the fish out of our pond)wood pigeons, crows, rooks (not sure which is which, but we have had two distinctively different types, one last night the head of which looked duck like), but we’re missing Thrushes, Sparrows, Starlings, Wrens, that used to be so common you took them for granted.
I also keep my eye out when riding and don’t see them much either, then again we never used to see woodpeckers which were kind of a big deal when they first showed up.