Is anybody there?

I'm not going to lie - the Birdwatch can be a worrying time.

What biscuits will I have with my cup of tea? Can I sit in my favourite chair and still see the garden? Will the birds know I'm watching them and not turn up?

Ok, so I'm being silly about the first two, but every year we get people telling us that during their hour Birdwatch their usually bustling 'bird-opolis' of a garden is strangly empty.

Now some of this is just bad timing. Not many people have the luxury to be able to stare out the window all day and see that actually there are quite a lot of periods of bird inactivity in their green space. This is perfectly normal - most birds wander over a wide area in search of food.

However, some of it might be due to slightly less obvious reasons.

Just as the cold weather of previous surveys brought a surge of birds flocking into gardens, so the incredibly mild weather of late could have the opposite affect. With the countryside not covered by frost and snow there have been plenty of berries and insects still available for our birds to eat.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what kinds of birds people are seeing this weekend, and in what numbers.

Which is why no matter if you saw 20+ or no birds at all, we still really want your results.

Happy Birdwatch everyone. And in case you're wondering, I'm rather partial to custard creams. Although ginger biscuits are always tasty. No, hang on, make that bourbons....