It was a birdwatch of two halves.
The first half went well. The boy spotted the two goldfinches on the feeder and then a redwing appeared. It was kind of it to make an appearance and stayed for most of the hour, perhaps wondering where the rest of the flock of winter thrushes had flown.
The chaffinches, house sparrows, greenfinches, blackbirds, collared doves, robin, dunnock and blue tit joined the stage and it was all going so well...
Unfortunately the action slowed a bit when the girl arrived for the second half. Ten minutes later and she was off uttering the heretical words "borin' birdwatching".
Some creative parenting meant we just about recovered from this near fatal situation. The girl proceeded to finalise our tally for the day and then entered the results online. We watched the live webcam of the feeders at the Lodge, wondered why we don't get coal tits in our garden and then we were off to enjoy the rest of our Saturday.
Happy Big Garden Birdwatch to you all.
Chris Gomersall (rspb-images.org.uk)