As you may have read, this year sees the 30th Big Garden Birdwatch. To mark this special anniversary, I'm already putting together a cunning plan for my best Birdwatch ever...
Strictly speaking, you don't need to do any special preparation for Big Garden Birdwatch. It's fine not to put out any food, but it's likely that you'll see more birds if you do. And, while it's not a competition to see the most, I'm sure you'll agree it's always nice to see a good variety of birds.
What's on the menu?
I'll be sticking to my trusty sunflower hearts, as nearly all the birds seem to love them: starlings, tits, finches, blackbirds, robins, great spotted woodpeckers...
There are a few that are picky eaters. What can you feed smaller birds like wrens and dunnocks that creep about in the undergrowth? I reckon you can't go wrong with porridge oats and grated cheese, especially if you can scatter them around where those birds lurk. Calorific bird cake will also go down a storm with birds of all shapes and sizes.
As a bit of a gamble, I'll be throwing out a few apples. With the recent cold weather, birds like fieldfares, redwings, song and mistle thrushes will go mad for a bit of fruit. Usually, they prefer to feed on worms and creepy-crawlies in the fields, but recent ice and snow has made life difficult for them.
I'll be even more chuffed if I can attract some waxwings to my garden. They're much prettier than their name suggests: fluffy, pinky-brown birds with crests, black and yellow tails, about the size of a starling. The 'wax' part refers to bright red, waxy blobs which form on their wing feathers. Beautiful! They've come all the way from Scandinavia just to raid our berry bushes, but apples will also please them if berry supplies are running low.
Don't forget the water!
Birds need to drink but it's also important for them to bathe, even in cold weather. A quick dip helps them to keep their feathers in order, and tidy feathers mean toasty birds. If you haven't got a pond or a proper birdbath, an upturned dustbin lid will do the trick. Personally, I wouldn't recommend outdoor bathing in these temperatures, but it takes all sorts.
In 2008, almost 400,000 people counted more than six million birds across 228,000 gardens. That's pretty impressive! I hope you'll join in this year and enjoy a relaxing hour of watching garden birds doing their stuff. It's a great excuse to sit down with a cup of tea and a biscuit... Good luck for 24-25 January everybody!
How are you preparing for the big day?
We have lived here for just over ten years (in East London) and inherited a pair of Blackbirds and also a pair of wrens who we still have (or if not the originals then decendents of them), we also get odd visitors on our hangers, I had a flock of siskins one year like lots of mini canaries, another, I couldn't believe my eyes when we had a Red spotted woodpecker eating on one of the feeders. But now we have the RSPB secret weapon which we discovered by accident last Autumn when my husband went to Homebase and instead of coming back with a tub of sunflower seeds brought home a tub of 50 RSPB fat-balls. We haven't looked back. We get house and tree sparrows, a couple of robins, blue and great tits who seem to go around together, starlings like they are going out of fashion, magpies, jays and collared doves, the blackbirds (who also love apples and pears) and wrens and even the odd thrush (not to mention the squirrals) who just can't get enough of these balls, whether in the hangers, or knocked on the ground by heavy handed pigeons. So I am hoping that my watch this year will certainly be the largest in numbers I have reported, but also fingers crossed in variety as well. Thank you RSPB, don't know what the secret ingredient is, but its even got my husband interested in the birds in the garden now. Let's hope its a good result all round this year.
Thanks so much Katie - I moved house end of May 08 and used to get posted a form to complete. Therefore my birdwatch will be different now - even tho I feed various things daily - so my results will be totally different. Look forward to it. Jeanie.
Hi Jeanie! Thanks for your comment. We have got a counting sheet you can download, to help you keep count of what you've seen. You can download it from here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/
It's more efficient for us (and cheaper - so more money for conservation) if you can submit your results online. The form is quick and easy - I promise! It'll be available from the 24th.
A really good, informative and helpful blog. Thank you. Will there be a printout on the web, so we can print it out and either post it back, or send it back via the web etc ? Many thanks.
Jeanie