I've counted fewer birds than last year. I'm not having to fill the feeders anything like as often as last winter and the winter before, but also everywhere was covered in snow here last year, so I could see the small ground feeders more clearly to count them, particularly the chaffinches, whose camouflage is so good and who keep moving.
I'm constantly frustrated by the sparrows. I don't think I've ever managed to count more than 8, when I'm sure there's a dozen or more, hopping on and off the fence onto the feeders, then in and out of the bushes!
Numbers arn't down that much, but certainly fewer species - for the last couple of years I would have had redpoll, siskin, brambling and blackcap turning up regularly, but none at all this year.
The numbers here are a bit down on last year but I've put that down to both the cold drizzle and the abundance of food still in the hedgerows (sloes, hips and haws were plentiful went I went for a walk last week).
Funniest thing I've seen this weekend was a collared dove trying to work out how to get onto the seed feeder hanging in an apple tree! It kept peering at the sparrows and then leaning right over until it nearly fell off the branch.
Numbers and species are generally down in my garden this year, and so it proved for the BGBW, missing the great tits, 1 chaffinch, 1 coal tit, 1 robin. Nor have I seen the two moorhens this year that came into my garden from the nearby stream to feed in the snow (though not at the BGBW 2011).
I was intrigued by the adult blackbird that sat nearly stock still for over 25 minutes on the leafless lilac tree just outside my boundary hedge, through rain and some sleet. Only then did it come onto the lawn and take just one of the feast of buggy nibbles that I had specially put there!