The weekend after next, around half a million people, maybe more maybe fewer, will take part in Big Garden Birdwatch.
It's become a tradition in many homes for everyone, young and old to settle down together for an hour and note the birds coming to their garden. And these observations, over a period of over 30 years, have helped to chart the ups and downs of our garden birds. They have shown the fall of the house sparrow and starling numbers and the rise of collared dove and wood pigeon.
Why not give it a go? It's fun and you will be contributing to a long-running mass-participation survey.
And I wonder how many politicians will be showing their green credentials by participating? Are we all in it together Mr Cameron? Will it be a labour of love Mr Miliband? Will you be proportionately represented Mr Clegg?
The question is - half a million plus or minus 800 or so Westminster MPs, Scottish MSPs, Welsh AMs and Northern Ireland MLAs?
A love of the natural world demonstrates that a person is a cultured inhabitant of planet Earth.
Hi curiousPan,think lots of us enjoy part time work after retiring,it gives us a chance to do more or less exactly what we want when we want to and with a good employer it is brilliant and I think gives the change from working full time to retiring a gradual change.One good thing is that lots of us get different skills to what we had.