Big Garden Birdwatch – the big build up!
It’s almost time for you to take part in the world’s largest wildlife survey…the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch. It is a great excuse to watch your garden birds whilst helping to collect incredibly helpful information on how our birds are doing.
RSPB Staff and volunteers take part and Anna Allum from our Pulborough Brooks nature reserve in West Sussex is running a special event to help get families prepared for the survey. Here's her guest blog:
For nearly 40 years, we've been asking you to count the birds in your garden – and you've been brilliant at it. With over half a million people now regularly taking part, Big Garden Birdwatch allows us to monitor trends and helps us understand how birds are doing.
We’d love to get lots of youngsters involved in this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch so the team at RSPB Pulborough Brooks nature reserve are inviting families to join them this weekend Saturday 20 & Sunday 21 January for their ‘big build up’ event.
You can come along for the morning (10.30 am – 12 noon) or afternoon (1.30 pm – 3pm) session and make bird feeders to take home for your garden and hone your bird spotting skills with some great games and activities.
Don’t forget to wrap up warm as we’ll be going on a short walk on the nature reserve where we’ll play bird bingo, try out some worm charming and find out what tasty treats our birds like to eat.
Whilst you’re here you can pick up your Big Garden Birdwatch spotter’s guide.
This year, the team at Riverford have kindly donated some sunflower heads for us to give out to families joining us for the event. Sunflower seeds are great for birds as they are rich in energy and popular with chaffinches, greenfinches, house sparrows and tits. You’ll be able to take your sunflower head home to put out in your garden ready to attract lots of lovely birds.
There’s no need to book for the event – just come along and join in. You can find the full details, times and costs on our webpage.
Just in case you’ve not taken part in our Big Garden Birdwatch before here’s a quick guide to what you need to do:
If you haven't got a garden that's no problem. Just pop down to your local park, community or green space and join in there.