Tuesday 3 February 2015

Big Garden Birdwatch 2015 – The results

I feared that rain would spoil my birdwatching count for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Thankfully the Saturday turned out sunny albeit cold. As soon I pulled the curtains in the morning I spotted the collared dove on the suet block and a robin on a search for a tasty morning treat.
Sparrows are the most frequent visitors to my garden. Most of the time they seem quite happy to share a fatball feeder. They perch on some nearby bushes together before deciding it's safe to fly over.
The blue tit is a recent visitor to the garden. I've seen it checking out a nest box on the side of the garage. There only seems to be one about so it needs to find a mate to make use of that nest box!
I'm always pleased to see a wren. The cold weather can do major damage to their numbers. This one has been hopping about on the ground picking up scraps from fallen food. I also saw on the ground for the first this year a dunnock but it proved rather camera shy! As before I took all these photographs through my patio and kitchen window. It's far too cold at the moment to leave the door open for an hour!

So this is what I saw in my hour:

4 Sparrows (2 males, 2 females)
4 Blackbirds (2 males 2 females)
1 Blue tit
1 Collared dove
1 Robin
1 Wren
1 Dunnock

Since I also had two cats on the prowl during this hour I don't think that's a bad tally.

Did you take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch?

ANIMALTALES
Linking up with Rosie from Eco-Gites of Lenault and Animal Tales.

7 comments:

  1. Bearing in mind you have cats I'd say that's a good tally. I love your wren and you are right - apparently in the hard winter of 1963 numbers were massively reduced. Perhaps temperatures need to fall much lower to adversely affect populations.

    Thank you so much for joining in with #AnimalTales (of a feathered type).

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  2. We also took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch and had our regular robin, blackbird, blue tits, great tits, doves, magpies and a pheasant who comes every day to peck on the ground underneath. One unexpected visitor who we started whistling back and forth with was a cockatiel!

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  3. I find it's the dogs that scare off the birds far more then the cats do. What a lovely array of little twitterers you have visit your yard.

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  4. Lovely photos of your feathered visitors.

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  5. This year's birdwatch was dominated by goldfinches. We counted 18 of them for sure but there were probably more - they just won't stay still and allow for sedate counting. That's the largest number of a single species we've ever seen in a RSPB birdwatch.

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  6. Grace says - What a great post and you were so lucky to see all these birds. I love Robins as they're so cheeky :) #animaltales

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  7. Wow you've captured lots of birds. We have put out food but do not seem to attract them. I may be because there are a few cats and dogs around x #AnimalTales

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