The RSPB describes BGBW as ‘the world’s biggest garden wildlife survey’. But what does that really mean? Every year, thousands of people across the UK sign up to spend just an hour watching the birds in their garden. The RSPB collects this data, creating a snapshot of the UK’s garden birds in January. The survey started in 1979. 11 million surveys later, and the BGBW is back and better than ever.
Sign up for free on the RSPB website and you can download an online or physical guide. Don’t worry if you’re not confident about what you’re seeing – you also get a chart to help you identify the birds. Then all you need to do is set yourself up for an hour in your garden. You can equally take part in your local green space (like a park), or from a balcony. Every time a bird lands, you record what it is and the largest quantity of that species that you have seen at any one time. This prevents recording the same bird twice. You can then submit the information online to the RSPB, it’s as simple as that.
Sign up here: https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch
Nature is in crisis, and we can see a subsection of this when we look at the birds we are seeing in the garden. Garden favourites like house sparrows, starlings, song thrush, greenfinch and chaffinch have seen severe declines in population. BGBW cannot be used to accurately measure current populations, but does pick up on trends and allows us all to contribute to understanding our bird populations. This helps the RSPB to build a picture of long-term changes in garden species in the UK and inspires us all to take action to save them.
The bird watch is also accompanied by an exciting online live stream on Saturday and Sunday, streaming live cameras, expert commentary, and interviews. Guests this year include Dr Amir Khan, Chris Packham, Lucy Hodson, and Indy Kiemel Greene. You will be able to tune in to ask questions and share what you have seen. The most exciting part here at Arne is that our live cam by the shop and café is going to be potentially featured on the live stream – so watch out for us! At the Arne feeders we regularly see robin, blue tit, great tit, coal tit, long-tailed tit, greenfinch, chaffinch, goldfinch, house sparrow, dunnock, nuthatch, siskin and more. If we’re lucky we also might see bullfinch and goldcrest.
Video: birds in the welcome area at Arne.
At Arne we are also running two new Birdwatching for Beginners courses from this January to get everyone excited for the weekend. There’s still time to sign up! https://events.rspb.org.uk/arne
We are also running a free family wildlife walk on Saturday 28th January. There are lots of other RSPB events running across the country, so do check out this page: https://events.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch