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RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch: 28th (Fri), 29th and 30th January.
The usual: Count the birds in your garden or a green space for an hour. Send off the results to the RSPB.
Its one of the biggest citizen science surveys. Last year over one million watchers took part and its 50 years since the very first survey.
What will you see?
We've had 29 species in the past year or so - added the goldcrest to the list last Saturday! Only seen it once though. Thanks for the reminder, have signed up.
Will do it this weekend with a cuppa. Watching and feeding the garden birds helped me in lockdown. Amazing how calming it is just watching them flit around.
Not had our usual winter visitors in the garden this year of yellow hammers, brambling and redwing.
I have the entire neighbourhood's cats visit my garden which means there's not much in the way of bird spotting. Blackbirds, pigeons and the odd robin are about all I get. I'll still sit for an hour and complete the survey though.
We’ve signed up too, expect to see the Robin, around 5 of one species who all hang around together and a few others 👍
We'll be doing this again this year, hoping to improve on 1 Robin, 2 Great Tits and 3 Blue Tits.
Come the Spring the garden is alive with Sparrows, Blackbirds but at this time of the year its a ghost town.
Signed up. Garden is doing well for the birds at the moment albeit the main regulars of blue tits, great tits, robins and pigeons....oh and parakeets are pretty much daily visitors now
Today's the day.
We've had an overwintering blackcap for weeks now. I bet your 'bottom dollar' it won't appear over these 3 days.
We've had a male/female pair of blackcaps, but not seen them for a couple of weeks. I did a ten minute test watch this morning, 14 species! Tend to see more on cold mornings like today.
This chap sitting on my back fence tends to keep the other birds away
is that a baby Robin?
Female blackbird I think.
Will need to time our survey around the regular visits of buzzards and sparrowhawks and when we get the occasional white tailed eagle fly overhead, or even better a hen harrier. Running short of bird seed though as the red deer come in and raid the feeders - do they count?
Interesting, would you be able to count the buzzard as it is sitting on your fence? Or is it only birds that actually land in the garden
Edit: I have just looked at the form to fill in. We see as many wrens as any other species in our garden, yet they are not on the given list or image poster-obviously can include as ‘other’
dovebiker - did you move to Mull?
Yes there should be a piece on the form for animals. We get badgers, the odd fox, woodmice and this last 2 years a hedgehog, which can be included when filling in the survey.
Well the weather has had an impact, it’s blowing a hoolie in West Yorkshire and Bird Feeders are almost untouched, I’ve seen one blue tit this morning when the feeders would normally be busy. First year I’ve taken part.😒
Same here RobinL very windy:
1 x blue tit
1 x green finch
1 x dunnock
1 x blackbird
1 x goldfinch
The high winds have put them off.
(also broken a fence);0(
dovebiker – did you move to Mull?
Yes, been here since last summer. Extremely windy here today with 60-70mph gusts and I can see breaking waves across the Sound to Morvern that must be spraying up about 100ft. Birds are really hanging on in the trees - not a good birding day.
Charm of goldfinches (10-14 or so) are regulars to our feeding station (we have an 8 seater niger feeder and a second ting feeder). Also plenty of the more usual birds and a Red Kite so far. I've also just loaded the parakeet feeder (aka the usual large bird seed feeder). About a kilo of see per week is eaten in the garden a the moment. They aren't so keen on the nice water feeder I bought.
I spent an hour looking out the window earlier, here's my list:
Crow
4pts of semi (empty)
The lid of our water butt
The watering can from next door
Grass
Amazon cardboard packaging
Tennis ball (??)
The bird feeders are now empty - contents on the floor.
We live in an exposed west facing spot 225m up in West Yorkshire. It's gusting 50+ mph here. Even the sparrows across the road are in hiding
I'll be doing this tomorrow morning. Just refilled the feeders. It was very busy this afternoon
Blue, Great, Coal and Long Tailed Tits
Gold, Green and Chaffinches
Spuggies
Blackbirds
Wood Pigeons
Wagtails (Pied)
And a Nuthatch.
Hoping it's as good tomorrow...
Very pleased to have 6 Greenfinches during the count. Not bad for a red listed bird. 20 species seen in the one hour. It was bird central for a while!
We had most of our regular visitors with the exception of blue tits
Wood pigeon
Greenfinch
Goldfinch
Chaffinch
Great Tit
Robin
Blackbird
Sparrow
Quite a good haul this morning.
Nuthatch
Blue Tit x 8
Great Tit x 2
Coal Tit x 2
Blackbird x 3
Magpie x 2
Robin
Bullfinch
Jackdaw
Greenfinch x 2
Collared Dove x 2
Jay
Dunnock
Chaffinch x 2
Wood Pigeon x 5
Starling (first one ever!)
Wren
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Only regulars missing were Long Tailed Tits. We have an occasional Goldfinch but not a regular.
@beej that's a good haul.
Got most of the visitors but missed a wren, Greater Spotted Woodpecker, LTTs and Dunnock during the hour.
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Few here:
Coal tit
Great tit
Blue tit
Bullfinch
Blackbirds
Dunnock
Wren
Female bullfinch
A pair of robins
Female black cap
And too many pidgeons that eat all the veg crops!
Thanks for the reminder OP. Kids enjoyed it too, although I think the potential for points to scouts and brownie badges helped.
My wife camped out in the conservatory
30mins in
And she's only seen a blue tit and a Robin, normally we have loads at the pond and feeder!
We normally have about 18 bird species in a week. Ended up with:
1 x sparrow
3 x dunnock
2 x blackbird
2 x woodpigeon
1 x ferel pigeon
5 x bluetit
4 x greenfinch
6 x goldfinch
1 x robin
Great,coal,blue and long tailed tits.
Nuthatch
Robins
Blackbirds
Dunnock
House sparrow
Chaffinch
Reed Bunting
Wren
Nice morning.