Saturday 26 January 2008

Big Garden Birdwatch

Every year the RSPB organise a birdwatch to provide information on garden birds in the UK. This weekend is that day for the 2008 birdwatch. Volunteers spend 1 hour recording the birds they see in their garden and report the numbers back to the RSPB.

One of a family of 5 collared doves living around our garden

This years count for 11:30 to 12:30 in our Garden in Stoke-on-Trent was as follows:

3 blackbirds; 1 robin; 2 house sparrows; 1 tree sparrow; 1 dunnock; 5 wood pigeons; 2 collared doves; 1 magpie and 6 starlings:

Of course, these events always lead to other interesting observations. The pigeons will settle onto the bird table and scatter breadcrumbs to the four winds. We discovered that one of our neighbours cats is rather partial to our bread!

Casper goes for the bread.....

Postscript: Having observed for an hour at a set time, it seemed that very few birds were observable in the garden. After we had finished the count I saw a flock of about 35 starlings, a bullfinch (seldom seen in our garden), a good bunch of house sparrows and a black headed gull. All 5 collared doves were around and there were at least 6 wood pigeons.

Over the years we have seen some interesting birds. I remember a waxwing, a merlin and a Harris hawk (the latter was an escapee), but a few years ago the Harris hawk flew towards our window whilst we were watching evening television. I said at the time to Rosie, "A Harris hawk as just landed on our canopy" - "never!" - "Yes"..... and it was soon followed by a hawk handler trotting up the drive. It took two days to capture the bird.

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