Garden Birdwatch

On Saturday we spent an hour watching and recording the birds that appeared in our garden. This was for the Big Garden Birdwatch for the RSPB. As our house has windows covering most areas of the gardens we could do the watch from inside in the warm! Some media reports say that the number of birds in suburban gardens are declining, but the bird experts say that we will not see as many birds in gardens in mild winters as there is plenty of food in lesser inhabited areas. All that said, our garden definitely not suburbia and our birds were here before us. So late morning armed with pencil and paper, binoculars and camera we started the count. Nothing, no not one bird! So we tried another window and yes our Robin had decided to be counted. Then slowly but surely other birds arrived. Blackbirds, male and female, Chaffinches, Coal Tits, Great Tits, Blue Tits Dunnocks, House Sparrows in force and a couple of collared doves all came to be counted. Our Hooded Crows were conspicuous by their absence and the whole proceeding were overseen by our now very tame Pheasants. We were careful not to count birds twice as we needed to record highest number at any one time. Our Robin decided it was a great game so appeared regularly at each window, even cutting through the car port on his circuit of the house!