The birds that normally visit our garden were conspicuously absent this weekend. We saw very few on Saturday and none at all on Sunday. We have a medium-sized garden in a market town, quite near farmland, and have seed feeders, fat balls and nyger seed and penuts available. Where were all the birds?
Same here. Only the day before I'd had my regular bullfinch, all the common birds and even 2 redpolls and reed buntings, but they were all a no-show on Saturday and Sunday. Quite disappointing. Lol. Xx
I'm beginning to think they're all in a union of some sort and went on not so much of a go slow , more a kind of "No Show", lol.
D805 Benbow
Ive had more birds in my garden this winter than ever before-greenfinch,chaffinch,robin,blue tit,great tit,goldfinch and last week my first blackcaps.One female and two males.And then Sunday nothing.Not a single bird.Not even the blackbird who waits on the fence for the dish of cat biscuits I put out daily for Black Tom' the local bruiser was there.It was quite peculiar.
Hi Coney they do another count in summer, so lets hope that is not a wash out like last summer fingers crossed : )
kind regards the little robin (gayle)
Totally rural location, Saturday I came back from work with an hours light, garden heaving with birds, decided to wait till Sunday!
Snow all gone, mild, windy - not a bird in sight - only 5 the whole hour.
Makes me wonder about the accuracy of the birdwatch, as I recorded far fewer birds simply due to changes in weather conditions
Hi all MY garden is mid Swindon like everyone else not a good count, carried out count on Sunday very high winds,had 3/4 song thrushes starting to vist,no sign over the weekend
JIM
Bit disappointing census here in NE Hants too. Mind you, a hailstorm mid-vigil did not help and the few birds we did have completely disappeared for a while thereafter. On the other hand, managed to tick Jackdaw for the first time for BGBW. They have only started visiting our garden this winter and I have lived here 30+ years.
We have a group of up to 8 longtailed tits that regularly come to an Acer tree. No idea what they are after but the blue tits and coal tits also like it
Interested to read all these comments as we too were worried by the lower than usual number of birds in our garden on the Somerset coast. They seem to have had a weekend away for the Garden Birdwatch count!
Looks like a lot of people have had the same trouble. I also had a fraction of the normal birds in my garden just outside Worcester this weekend, however the weekend before when the grass was covered in snow I was inundated with birds all day long! I too was reluctant to submit my results as they are not a true record of my normal garden visitors. I have a large natural hedge around my garden and the locals call it the 'singing hedge' as we have so many birds living in it!