Greenfinch. Photo by Steve RoundOver the weekend, I was one of the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who sat down for an hour, grabbed a cup of tea and a biscuit, and watched the birds in my garden. Were you?

My bird-feeding strategy paid off reasonably well. Here's what I saw on Saturday morning:
  • Greenfinches: 12 at once, wolfing down sunflower seeds we'd scattered on the ground
  • Chaffinches: 7, doing the same thing
  • Jackdaws: 7. These are my favourite garden birds at the moment. Watching them hanging off the peanut feeder and trundling around the lawn together is very entertaining
  • Great tit: 4
  • Blue tit: 3
  • Robin: 3. One singing, one with a broken leg (these two are regular) and one interloper, which didn't stay for long...
  • Dunnock: 2
  • Coal tit: 1
  • Sparrowhawk: 1. As I expected, one turned up 15 minutes in and all the other birds scattered. It sat on the garden fence and waited. Fortunately, it cleared off after another quarter of an hour and peace was duly restored
  • Wren: 1
  • Great spotted woodpecker: 1. It made short work of some peanuts I'd put out with it in mind
  • Blackbird: 1

The only slightly annoying thing for me was the fact that I was hoping for some tree sparrows. They were seen on Friday afternoon but failed to make an appearance over the weekend. Well, it's their loss, not mine...

The sparrowhawk was thrilling and the jackdaws made me laugh. My count will go into the database with everyone else's, and after a couple of months of analysis by RSPB boffins, the nationwide results will be revealed. What will this year's Top 15 look like?

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Parents
  • I've been helping answer e-mails we've had about Big Garden Birdwatch and lots of people blamed the weather for lower-than-expected numbers of birds. The weather wasn't bad all over the UK so we think that effect will be balanced out (I was lucky - it was sunny for me!).

    There are lots of reasons why birds might not be in your garden. We have some more details here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/decline/winter.asp

    However, research continues into whether birds know it's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend and make themselves scarce...

Comment
  • I've been helping answer e-mails we've had about Big Garden Birdwatch and lots of people blamed the weather for lower-than-expected numbers of birds. The weather wasn't bad all over the UK so we think that effect will be balanced out (I was lucky - it was sunny for me!).

    There are lots of reasons why birds might not be in your garden. We have some more details here: http://www.rspb.org.uk/advice/helpingbirds/decline/winter.asp

    However, research continues into whether birds know it's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend and make themselves scarce...

Children
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