In the run up to this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch, Ian McNab from our communications team looks back at how his experiences of the survey have changed over the years.
A few days ago, I was cleaning the birdfeeders in my garden when I realised something interesting: this year I will be taking part in Big Garden Birdwatch from my fourth different home in five years. Here at the RSPB, we encourage people to take part whatever outdoor space you may have – big, small, public, private, urban, rural, etc. So it was quite reaffirming to realise that without meaning to, I’ve been practicing what we preach!
With that in mind, here my highlights from a varied few years of Big Garden Birdwatching.
2019 – A concrete garden in Kirkwall, Orkney
Starlings are common garden visitors in Orkney. Image credit: Andy Hay (rspb-images.com)
Orkney is rightly lauded for its incredible wildlife, but there are a few Big Garden Birdwatch favourites you won’t find here, such as blue tits and great tits. Starlings and house sparrows regularly top the charts while my colleagues at the time proudly spoke of flocks of twite in their gardens. However, our little concrete space was something of a wildlife desert.
Fortunately we found our oasis in the form of a window feeder which we installed a few weeks before Big Garden Birdwatch. After a slow start, word started to spread in the avian world that there was a new stop-off point between the waterfront and the park on Willow Road. By the time the last weekend in January rolled around, we were regularly welcoming starling flocks of a dozen or more. Thankfully, they showed well during the birdwatch itself, with a couple of hooded crows acting as the cherry on top (and for anyone who thinks corvids are boring – see here).
Snack of choice - Earl grey and some butteries.
2020 – A car park in Milngavie, East Dunbartonshire
Who's watching who? Image credit: Ben Andrew (rspb-images.com)
Our trusty window feeder made the journey back to the mainland with us and found pride of place on our new living room window, where it attracted a steady stream of corvids and pigeons. The ground-floor flat was only a five-minute walk from both Tannoch Loch and the Mugdock and Craigmaddie Reservoirs, but our immediate view was the building’s small car park and a suburban stretch of the A81. With not much happening out the back, this car park was chosen for our 2020 Big Garden Birdwatch.
This was probably our least successful survey in terms of species counted, although I should stress that even if you don’t see a single bird, this is still vital information and we’d always ask people to submit their results. That being said, we did enjoy some more corvid action, with a few jackdaws and some carrion crows making an appearance. Even if the hoodies up north are undeniably cooler than their carrion cousins.
Snack of choice - A warm orange juice and custards creams.
2021 & 2022 – A third-floor flat in Cumbernauld, North Lanarkshire
Unfortunately we didn't get quite this close to any of our visitors. Image credit: Grahame Madge (rspb-images.com)
From one central belt town to another, the view from our next home could hardly have been more different. As well as being a few floors higher, we now looked onto a vast field, with two horse chestnuts and a massive sycamore tree mere metres from our window.
Perhaps because of the height, we received far less visitors to our window feeder in this flat, however the bustling life in the trees more than made up for it. Great tits and starlings regularly flitted in and out and we became very fond of a woodpigeon couple who spent every rainy day huddled together amongst the branches. The highlight was undoubtedly the one-time visit from a buzzard which for a moment seemed like it was heading straight for our living room.
As anyone who took part in last year’s Big Garden Birdwatch will tell you, it was a rather blustery weekend, so we weren’t sure we’d see much. Nevertheless, we mentally sectioned off an area of grass (which just happened to include the trees) and set to counting. The result: six starlings, three blue tits, three chaffinches, one rook and one lonesome woodpigeon. Don’t worry though, the other one showed up later.
Snack of choice - Assam tea and off-brand hobnobs.
2023 – A very bushy garden in Newburgh, Fife
The snacks are ready.
Upon moving into our new house in October, one of the first things we did was set up our new feeding station. Often it can take birds a little while to discover and regularly use a new feeder, and given the previous owners had moved out a month or so before, we prepared ourselves for a slow start.
Our worries proved unfounded however, as within days we’d seen seven different species: house sparrows, great, blue and coal tits, robins, chaffinches and even a dunnock. We’re lucky to have moved into a house that has a perfect set up for them, plenty of trees and shrubs for cover, with an open section which is ideal for viewing the action-packed feeders. They don’t even seem to mind our two cats enjoying the show from safely behind the window.
We’ll need to wait and see what happens on the weekend itself this year. Our hopes are high after the last couple of months, but whether it’s a feeding frenzy or a complete washout, we’ll be delighted to do our part for the UK’s largest wildlife survey.
Snack of choice - To be confirmed. Currently feel like a hot chocolate.
Big Garden Birdwatch is running from 27 – 29 January. For more information or to sign up, visit our website.