This years Big Garden Birdwatch saw me more hopeful than last. Our previous house had a regular species drop in of three: blackbirds, wood pigeons and starlings. While I am actually fond of all three it doesn’t make for the most exciting hours viewing. However our new garden sees a much greater diversity with over ten regular species dropping in and a handful of irregulars.
I had planned to try to do the watch early morning or just after dinner, but marking, planning and parental duties took priority. But we now have a good storage unit in the sitting room for Alice’s toys and books.
Man duties done I settled in to monitor the birds later than I’d intended, so I did think I’d miss out as late afternoon/early evening isn’t an amazingly active point and next doors cat sitting on the fence for a while won’t of helped, but haven’t had too bad a time. I’ve missed out on a few of the finches who have been regular visitors and the collared doves, but still managed double figures of species.
The survey works by taking the largest number of each species you see at once, so you don’t count birds coming in and out. My results were as follows:
Eleven starlings
Six blackbirds
Four wood pigeons
Three blue tits
Two great tits
Two chaffinches
Two house sparrows
One robin
One wren
One crow
One common gull
I managed to capture many on the trail cam with a number posing nicely for the mugshots.
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