Enjoyed the watching enormously. Worry about the recording though...it's all a bit vague isn't it? It wasn't always possible to be accurate about numbers of birds of each variety, and I ended up recording number of times seen which is not number of birds seen exactly. I don't think it will make much difference in my case; surely it is more important to know which birds are to be found in which areas?....and that wasn't asked for. I wrote it into the bit at the foot of the records, though it was stated that this bit didn't count in the watch.derrr!
Also, why were we not asked to state time of day recording took place? I did a Watch in the morning , with the sun; and another at the end of the day, when most birds were getting ready to roost in the dusk; but this info was not requested either.
AnneHerlihy said: It wasn't always possible to be accurate about numbers of birds of each variety
It wasn't always possible to be accurate about numbers of birds of each variety
Yeah I know. I suppose you can only do your best. I was watching a tree with a variety of finches silhouetted against a white sky. The only way I could tell them apart was with binoculars but they were constantly moving from one branch to another, fighting over the feeder then flying off.
After spending days looking forward to the Bird Watch and with me watching the back garden and my wife watching the front garden, it turned out to be hugely disappointing, with virtually a complete absence of any bird life whatsover. Our total sightings consisted of one magpie and just one house sparrow.
In the subsequent in-house analysis, we realised this is probably the first time we have ever seen a house sparrow on it's own in our garden. Although it was quite cold but with no wind or rain, that's all we observed, although it's not the worst result. Last year on birdwatch day it was torrential rain with gale force winds and we saw nothing at all except for both bird tables being blown over.