[Closed] R.S.P.B. Big Garden bird watch - This weekend

We get some good birds in the garden; goldcrest. Treecreeper, nuthatch, great spotted woodpecker, blackcap, willow warbler, tawny owl and occasional sparrow hawk as well as the usual stuff.

RSPB garden watch sends them all into hiding and leaves just the odd pigeon and magpie. I’ll still do it though.

A bump for the start of the weekend.

Let us know what birds you record please?

For those of us in more rural locations, there's this as well -  https://www.gwct.org.uk/farming/big-farmland-bird-count/

Had some siskins outside my study window the other day. Which was nice.

Flashy - lovely to see those siskins.

This morning has been a bit disappointing, as I've only seen a woodpigeon. Considering we usually get at least 10 species of bird on any one day is underwhelming.
Will try again later or tomorrow when the weather perks up.

just been the usual today, few more robins though. haven't seen the blue tits this year at all, maybe to early? male chaffinch and a wren were a new welcome at the start of the week.

can't get birds to use the seed feeder, any tips or ideas?

I long for the winters when I was a young teenager.

My feeders were alive with bluetits, great tits and greenfinches, .
Dunnocks and wrens would pick up scraps from underneath the bird table which was busy with robins, chaffinches, bullfinches, coal tits and sparrows.

Now it's rubbish.

Magpies, collared doves. The occasional bluetit.

What happened?

rmacattack - You need to keep the feeders clean. I change mine around once a week and give them a good scrub, leaving the spare one in the green house.

Birds like to have some water near too, as seeds are a dry food. A birdbath or small pond is great too.

Feeders need to be within a safe area, eg. near a bush or tree if possible, for quick escape from predators.

We use sunflowerhearts, all the birds seem to eat them.

More info on the RSPB website.

derek starship - can't answer your question. We have over the years lost all our sparrows (apart from dunnocks) but gained siskins, bullfinches, a blackcap, the odd goldcrest and winter visitor such as a brambling.

Changing in farming practice has been blamed for the decline of some species, but I suppose everything we do has some sort of impact in populations. Sparrow seem to be vert localised here, we get the occasional one in our garden but you don't need to walk too far and they'll be quite a few somewhere else.

We get quite a good mix of birds here so I'll get the kids to keep their eyes peeled.

Bunnyhop, thanks for starting the OP. Family just done an hour watching the garden, did add a few seeds before hand;) pretty much the birds DerekS mentioned used to come, we got today and a Goldcrest well chuffed with that, even got a photo (of sorts, need to work out how to get an image up on here too;).

test pic ...It worked!!

cvilla - lovely photo. They are such busy birds, hardly ever still, so getting a picture was a win.

This afternoon:
Blue tit 2
Blackbird 2
Robin 1
woodpigeon 2
goldfinch 1
dunnock 2
greenfinch 4
chaffinch 1
goldcrest 1 - really chuffed seeing this tiny bird.

not too bad there bunnyhop, i'm missing the tits and various finches though, they have gone awol this year. ill do a tally up tomorrow. we get the usual sparrows , robins, wagtail, blackbird, jackdaw, raven,rook , magpie,starlings, collared dove(used to be a folck of near 10, now only see 4) , saw a pair of chaffinches. our wren seems to be gone since the other day.

the big crows and magpies will only come if i throw big stuff, like bread and other scrap on the shed roof. they used to annoy me , but hey there birds and part of the planet. There will only be a few of each, i guess they run in gangs cause in adjoining fields and areas there is loads of them. starlings are like a black friday sale.  complete savages, i used to move them on but again, its not right, in recent times they have calmed a bit and are slightly fewer .

Doing my count at some point tomorrow, although will probably only be sparrows reported.

At this time of year we only get more interesting visitors when there's snow on the ground.

Counting underway, so far have had

- 6 sparrows

- 2 starlings

- 2 blackbirds

- 1 wren

We have a Common Buzzard land in our garden in Norfolk most days. Happily it seems to be part of his routine. He hunts in the field behind us and then, once eaten, he sits on a post in our garden to digest.

Unless it is the Big Garden Bird Watch weekend which he appears to go in to hiding for every year!

Does it have to be touchdown in the garden. I regularly get red kites flying over (never seen one land). Can get interesting birds in the hedge/scrub along the edges of the fields as well (black cap, goldies, and the odd pheasant....)

did a tally this morning, quite similar to yesterday but no blackbirds today, usually see two at least. have had the first blue tit of the year. one lonesome one that pops down grabs a seed and clears off, comes back after 20 mins . the starlings are relentless , annoys me that the steal the mealworms from the smaller ones.

jackdaw- 12

starling - 8

rook-2

wagtail- 2

robin- 3

dove- 6

sparrow- 12

chaffinch - 6

bluetit- 1

magpie- 1

The usual local flock of Goldfinches were dumping half the sunflower hearts on the floor, a robin made his occasional appearance, one of the fat pigeons did his usual plundering of the feeders, practically falling off the branch in the process, a couple of Bluetits were out in the Acer after litchen and the feeders, and a couple of pairs of Chaffinches were hanging around looking intimidated by the dirty pigeon.
Sadly the little local family of sparrows has disappeared, along with the starlings that used to visit. The Greenfinches don’t come around, either.

Does it have to be touchdown in the garden. I regularly get red kites flying over

We added red kites and jays in the “other birds” box on the website and it came back with a message along the lines of “these aren’t garden birds so they don’t count”. Otherwise it was the usual sparrows, pigeon, blackbirds and crows.

Completed ours this afternoon, luckily as this morning our garden seemed devoid of birds.

Blackbird- 4

Robin- 2

Blue tit- 7

Great tit- 4

Coal tit- 4

Long Tailed tit- 3 (usually they come in mob handed and take over the garden, about 12 of them)

Marsh tit- 2

Nut hatch- 1

Yellow Hammer- 1

Dunnock- 3

Chaffinch 4 male- 2 female

16 species including a small flock of lesser redpoll (17) - amazing 😀

2 sparrows
1 daddy robin
1 mammy blackbird
1 parrot!
2 horrible,nasty ,murdering magpies.

Too early for the blue tits here.
Can’t wait to see the noisy ,busy little buggers. 🙂

Can't remember the numbers, but species was pretty much normal for a day here,

Blue tit

Great tit

Long tailed tit

Coal tit

Chaffinch

Robin

Wren

Goldfinch

Lesser Spotted Woody

Green Woody

Magpie

Jackdaw

Rook

Blackbird

Red kite

Partridge

Pheasant (including a mutant today, which is a less frequent visitor)

Red kite

Kestrel (as kites above, overhead not on ground.)

Treecreeper

Collared dove

Woodpigeon

Think that was it

Flashy - extremly envious of your Lesser spotted and green woodpecker. We rarely get a great spotted one, but it does arrive about twice a year.

Our regular birds which come everyday without fail are about 2 bullfinches and great tits, coal tits, magpies and collared doves were a no-show when I counted.

Today is the last day folks. So get counting :0)

Sparrow

Jackdaw

great tit

Blue  tit

robin

chaffinch

greenfinch

goldfinch

wood pigeon

wren

starling

Our occasional great spotted woodpecker was a no-show!

Blue Tit

Raven

Wood Pigeon

Great Tit

Buzzard

But, I was out shooting.

Not the above BTW.