Our Big Garden Birdwatch is looming and is your excuse to lose yourself in nature and forget everything else for a full sixty minutes!
Choose an appropriate hour over Saturday 27th, Sunday 28th or Monday 29th then sit down by a window to record what wild things live around you. Surveys typically throw-up some dozen or so different bird species, sometimes more, sometimes less. Whatever you see, please let us know.
Whatever you send us is considered gold dust by our geeks who pour over the data, creating huge spreadsheets they can then compare with results from previous years, and this is where their thrill levels go off the scale! But before I explain why, let's return to you; sitting by your window discovering wildlife.
When was the last time you did anything like this? It's probably been a while. Our busy twenty-first century lifestyles don't give many opportunities to simply sit and stare. There's no strain or stress, just discovery as one creature, then another passes in front of you going about their busy lives in ways we don't normally notice. How many seeds do those blue tits gather in a day? Has that house sparrow always been here? Do blackbirds play tag or are they having a bit of a moment? All this drama happens around you pretty much every day. When it's cold, the drama gets deadly serious as birds struggle to maintain their body temperatures. If they can't find enough food, they won't survive to see warmer days.
Some Doctors have started prescribing quiet time or outdoor activities instead of medication or treatment to help patients where stress or anxiety have taken a toll on their health, both physical and mental. There's good evidence to show it's an effective approach, so use our Big Garden Birdwatch as an excuse to give it a go. It's just one hour and each one of those sixty minutes could improve your well-being. It won't make you thinner, younger or more beautiful than you already are, but this sort of self-medication can open up all sorts of other life enhancing avenues. The best part is... it's FREE.
Here in the south east, the data you've sent us over the past decade has shown we're losing our collared doves, house sparrows and starlings. Goldfinches have increased enormously over that same time and most of the other top ten bird species have remained pretty much stable. There are some variations county by county and even borough by borough within London. I've accidentally drifted into why your sightings get us excited. We could never in a million years gather all the data from the locations you collectively have access to, yet over the course of these three days each January, you selflessly share the information with us. Comparisons with previous years reveal patterns of change that can signal environmental harm or emerging diseases, such as Trichomonosis. It was the Big Garden Birdwatch that flagged the decline of our most common UK bird; the house sparrow. Subsequent research found many were simply starving to death because insect numbers and seed availability had both dropped. Since discovering that and promoting the sowing of wild flower meadows, the house sparrow population has levelled off.
So what can we expect this year? Well, 2017 was a positive one for garden birds, such as greenfinch, chaffinch, blue tit, great tit and long-tailed tit. It's thought the prolonged wet weather in 2016 had driven down the breeding success of the tit family, but 2017's drier winter puts them in a strong position for a comeback this year. The disease, Trichomonosis has taken its toll on greenfinches in particular, but also chaffinches. Is this the year our efforts to keep feeding stations clean will pay off, allowing their numbers to bounce back? We'll soon find out.
Big Garden Birdwatch packs are available to order by texting BIRD to 70111 or calling 0800 665 498 until 24 January ONLY. After that date, you can download identification sheets from our webpage, available now via rspb.org.uk/birdwatch.