The tension is building as we reach the halfway stage and today’s count delivered a draw, with both the courtyard and café team spotting 9 species and scoring 12 points. A first for the week was a lovely little wren who was skulking around the back of the café garden. We’ve yet to spot a marsh tit during our allotted 10 minutes using either set of feeders – so if you do pop in over the next few days perhaps you can join in and bring us luck.
Are you ready for the big weekend? Find out more, download spotting sheets and enter your results online at www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch
Lots of people put food out for the birds which is great, but less of you make sure that water is available too, so Trevor’s top tip for the day is to make sure you have a bird bath. Birds need water for both drinking and bathing. They will even bath when the weather is cold so do make sure that you keep them as ice-free as possible (but you should never use anti-freeze, salt or other chemicals). Naturally, Trevor has a range of bird baths for sale in the shop!
Watching birds bathing is great fun, especially when you get a visit from a group of noisy, squabbling starlings. But in this photo, it’s the blue tits who are having a spring clean.
Mel’s top tip - it’s not just the birds who enjoy eating suet. One of our most popular lunchtime specials is Andrew’s bacon & onion suet pudding – it even featured on BBC radio Sussex last weekend! The radio Sussex team subsequently came in to try it and chat to our very own Sophie about big garden birdwatch, so listen out on Saturday’s breakfast show.
Bathing blue tits - photo by Ray Kennedy (rspb-images.com)