Monday, January 26, 2009

BGBW III

The end of January and another Big Garden Birdwatch. A spell of milder weather has seen bird numbers fall away in the last couple of weeks - it's not so long since I looked out the bedroom window and saw 15 blackbirds in the hoar frost.
Still there were a few birds around. It's getting harder to count them and I'm sure I'm down on the chafinches at least. The garden is more mature, more 'bushy' and we have more feeding stations, so you need to be counting in several spots at once.

The starlings came top again, peaking with the first feed of the morning. After that the raiding parties were smaller. Max number of 11 was only half of last years, but we've had more at other times so I think it just reflects other feeding opportunities. It was pleasing that the top 3 this year are all birds that have bred in the garden/house - starling 11, house sparrow 8 and blue tit 7. Also that the first 2 are in the list of declining birds, so we're doing our bit! It was our best year for goldfinch at 5, but the greenfinch were down at 2, compared to 8 last year. The only vaguely unusual bird was a grey wagtail, but the 2 pieds didn't show - Kay said she hasn't seen them for a few weeks now.

1 comment:

Shirley said...

Hi there Brian :-)

Dicovered your blog via Nat History link for BGB round-up. Very nice!

Great to see another blog with videos. You've got some great pics too. Love the ones with apples stuck on trees. I put apples on garden obelisks at this time of year and blackbirds love - the blackcap too when it ocassionally visits. All the best :-D