Things have become a bit competitive at the Nature’s Home desk this week.
Last weekend, we did the Big Garden Birdwatch with our respective households. Two of us (Aisling and Anna) did it in our gardens, and Emma P, who is basically garden-less, reported from a local park instead, which yielded plenty of water-loving birds, including gulls, waterfowl and a heron, bringing her total up to 13 species.
Emma snapped this photo to count this flock of black-headed gulls in the local park.
EMMA'S BGBW HIGHLIGHT: "My backyard is just a few flowerpots on hardstanding, but I'm lucky to have an urban park behind my house that's a great escape, with a surprising amount of wildlife for such a built-up area by a main road. I contained my survey to a small part of it, and still spotted 13 bird species. I got up close to the resident heron, who's normally on an island but was sitting beside the pond."
At my suburban Wiltshire home on Sunday, I roped in my partner and children. We cleaned and refilled all our feeders, then crowded around our small kitchen window to watch. Unfortunately it immediately began to rain, and a local grey squirrel was first on the scene, collecting and caching peanuts around the garden for about the first 30 minutes, which seemed to keep many birds away. Only towards the end of the hour did the usual flurry of avian activity resume, led by an army of mealworm-loving starlings and topped off by our male blackcap (no sign of his lady friend on this day, sadly).
The BGWB Results site generated this graph for me, showing my top 10 birds.
In addition to this top 10, my family spotted great tits, a blackcap, a robin, a greenfinch, magpies, a rook, a dunnock, woodpigeons… and that pesky squirrel!
MY BGBW HIGHLIGHT: "Starling numbers are down by 79% since the Big Garden BIrdwatch started in 1977, so I was pleased to have lots of them swarming around my mealworm feeder! They have lovely plumage in winter. These ones come from a noisy roost in a large horse-chestnut tree opposite my house."
Meanwhile, Aisling cradled a cuppa in her conservatory, looking out over her densely vegetated urban garden close to some good nature reserves, and spotted 11 different species, including clouds of goldfinches and a linnet - a rare sight at this time of year.
I wonder how many linnets cropped up in the BGBW results? (Photo: Andy Hay, rspb-images.com)
AISLING'S BGBW HIGHLIGHT: "This was my first Big Garden Birdwatch, and the first time I've really sat down to look at the diversity of life just outside my kitchen window. The highlight was discovering a bird that I didn't know, and luckily I had the RSPB's Bird Identification page to identify it as a linnet."
Proving that everyone’s a winner, we each scooped a distinction, too:
BIGGEST FLOCK: Emma P, who counted 122 black-headed gulls in the park.
BIGGEST BIRD: Emma again, with a beautiful grey heron.
MOST SPECIES: Anna S, with 18 bird species - plus a squirrel
MOST INTERESTING SPOT: Aisling’s linnet
Emma’s Top 10 chart is dominated by her giant gull flock!
Hurrah for us!
How did you get on during your Big Garden Birdwatch? Send your stories to us at natureshome@rspb.org.uk