RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

[glallotments]

Very few birds around today - just wonder if during bird watch weekend more people put food out and our fickle friends decide to have a change! Bird feeders and tables are still full of food which is unheard of usually!!!

We have had a couple of blue tits checking out one of our sparrow terrace boxes though. They always nest in one of the holes in this box rather than the boxes specially for them!

On another note we went to a local nursery yesterday and a robin was flying/hopping about inside. Apparently the owners have a tray of food inside the door especially for the robin who pops in when the door is open - even just ajar - and then when it is ready hangs about by the door waiting for it to be opened so it can fly outside.

[PLUMPUDDING]

Much better tally today starting with a heron terrorising the goldfish. Also the first song thrush in the garden for ages. Eighteen species altogether with most of the regulars and the return of the brambling, but the long tailed tits, coal tit, nuthatch, siskin, greater spotted woodpecker and treecreeper didn't show up. They'll probably come this afternoon now I've stopped recording.

[glallotments]

Still hardly anything here. Hope the fish survived - we have had problems with herons and have ended up having to use black string across the pond which make cleaning the pump a longer job than it should be.

[Geoff]

That was a treat - bang on cue a dozen Long Tailed Tits attacked a fat ball and turned it into a fluff ball. Also had four Bullfinches today, very pretty but I fear for the blossom on the ornamental cherry they were attacking.

[Colin Miles]

I expect that the theory behind this survey is that with a large enough samples all the errors will somehow cancel each other out. But I do wonder. An hour isn't very long and my experience is that different species visit feeders at different times of day. As for counting the numbers of tits - blue, great and coal - to our feeders, it is absolute guesswork. As the kids used to say, 1, 2, 3 lots.

[Elaine]

Well my Big Garden Bird-watch produced very little, as I suspected! I had at the peak, 16 starlings, 3 blackbirds, a single house sparrow, blue tit, and robin, 2 wrens and a dunnock. I could hear a chaffinch, there was a collared dove on the roof opposite and a posse of black headed gulls wheeling around over head but couldn't count those! Still, at least the birds feeding in my garden don't have to fight for their grub...small consolation.
Cheers.

[glallotments]

It's impossible to count sparrows. Also having windows pointing in different directions means my husband and I are forever shouting to one another - how many x can you see I can see 2. Also it can be difficult to identify a bird in silhouette against the sky.

That said the birds as usually were lying low. It isn't our imagination as the feeders which generally empty in a day remained almost full for the entire weekend.

Even collared doves that usually appear in half dozens only turned up as a lone individual. So do more people put food out on this day or are the birds having a game with us all.

[Colin Miles]

The birds are definitely playing with us. During the snowy weather we had 5 long-tailed tits visiting regularly. This was down to just a solitary individual by last Thursday and it continued to visit until today when 4 turned up! Similarly the single wagtail which 'disappeared' over the weekend.

[Primrose]

So sad about your wrens Johnboy. Finding so many of them, all pathetically huddled together, must have been heartbreaking.
Sadly I haven't seen our regular little wren either since those Minus 21 degree nights and far fewer bluetits too.

I think around here, if they died, it was probably from the cold, rather than lack of food because we were out feeding them several times a day with a huge variety of food - something to suit everybody, and continually unfreezing their drinking water.

[Johnboy]

Hi Primrose,
I fear that not only the Wrens suffered but I had a small colony of Gold Crests and they too seem to have totally disappeared. They were down in numbers because there was a hell of a gale during the breeding period last year and after the gale I found five nests blown out of the large Yew tree in my front garden onto the lawn. All showed signs of eggs within. I do not know if they managed to breed at all last year.
The Pied Wagtails have gone too and no sign of the Tree Creepers. All these birds are those that you cannot feed and rely solely on flies and spiders and the like.
However for the last couple of days there are literally hundreds of Siskins on the plot and it is taking less than a day to empty my nut feeder!
I live quite close to 12500 acres of woodland and it is possible that some of the birds have gone into the forest. I really hope so.
JB.