Well the snow has arrived in good time for Big Garden Birdwatch next weekend. It's been driving good numbers of birds into people's gardens - and some unusual visitors too. Reed buntings, redwings and fieldfares, pheasants, bramblings and blackcaps have all been found by people I know in my home county of Cambridgeshire over the weekend.
I went to town keeping my birds well fed over the weekend, with a whole range of food from the RSPB birdfood range (sorry for the shameless plug, but 100% of profits go to our conservation work), including Buggy Nibbles, fat balls, feeder mix, suet pellets with raisins and bugs and more all helping out the birds. Many people have been reporting fieldfares in their gardens with fallen apples doing the job (I spiked mine on a branch and the blackbirds loved them). Redwings and fieldfares (below) have been suffering that's for sure and I've come across several redwings that allowed approach to a few inches - clearly exhausted and very hungry and tired.
I went for a long walk out from home on saturday and found a superb flock of 600 skylarks in the field next to my garden - I was surprised they'd stuck around with snow covering the ground, but a row of stubble left by the farmer had provided them with plenty of food. I'm not sure I've ever seen such a big flock actually.
So this week I'd recommend stocking up your feeders and getting the birds warmed up for Big Garden Birdwatch next weekend. It could be a great birdwatch with some good counts, so please make sure that you take part and tell the RSPB about your garden birds. There are some more tips for the Birdwatch in the current issue of Birds
Thanks for all your positive comments about the latest issue of the magazine by the way. Glad so many of you are enjoying it. We're on course for the most e-mails ever received in a single month for Birds magazine, so keep them coming. It was good to have a few complaints about me not posting a blog as usual on Friday - glad some of you are reading and sorry!
Thats great to hear I read your blog as well I live in south milton keynes and have most of this week off so I want to try and make it over to the lodge at sandy that seems to be the nearest to me still trying to make time each day to get a couple of shots and its amazing once you start looking and listening how many birds you notice even down to the quick visit to McDonald car park for a quick bite how many birds seem to hang around for some food have to take some seeds with me next time as the salty chips someone was throwing them prob wont do them a lot of good and I noticed after the birds have a couple of them bits they go straight to a puddle for a drink be in touch soon good luck with anything your on at the moment
Best Regards
Rodney
Rodney Lewis
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