Big Garden Birdwatch!

Over this weekend every year, the RSPB runs the worlds largest wildlife survey in which the UK public are asked to get involved by watching and logging the birds that visit their gardens over a 1 hour time frame. In this blog I’ll explain a little about the survey but mainly about how my family and I took part…

2022 marks the 43rd year of the big garden birdwatch and last year over 1 million people took part in a record breaking effort! The aim is to collate as much data from all across the UK at the same time. The data can be used to monitor the populations of our bird species and see how they are fairing. For example, we know from the last decade that Goldfinches have increased by 50% but Song Thrushes have decreased by 78%. This can then lead to the RSPB determining areas of concern and how to address them and protect species that are in decline.

It is the biggest event in the RSPB calendar and anyone can get involved. It is free and only takes 1 hour of your time anytime over the specified 3 days. They will even send you a leaflet to help identify the birds so you don’t have to be an expert either. You don’t even need to have a garden! You can use your local park! The only rule is you must only count the largest number of a particular species that land at one time, for example if a Robin comes in, then leaves and then another Robin arrives you would only count 1 Robin as it could be the same bird that keeps coming back. If 2 are in the garden at the same time then you count 2. Simple enough!

Last year was our first time joining in and our garden had zero visitors, we had only just started to learn about nature and birds and as such did not yet provide any reason for wildlife to visit our garden! We would address this but in the meantime we opted to use our local nature area for our hour and then supplied our findings on the RSPB website. We then began providing feeders in our garden and now have a regular influx of birds. So this year we stayed home and did our hour from the conservatory!

I filled up the feeders, put extra out on the wall and on the grass to (not all birds use feeders) and also provided water in a tray - more birds will visit your garden for water rather than food. My daughter and I had our cameras ready, my wife her binoculars. We had drinks and snacks as well as paper and pen. Ready, START. Sunday 30th January, 09:17.

The regular visitors started making their way in, first a Blackbird which is a ground feeder, he was taking advantage of the seed I had spread on the lawn when another Blackbird arrived, this time a female - Clearly distinguishable as a female is brown with a brown bill and the male is black with a yellow bill. So that was 2 Blackbirds written down.

Next up was the Starlings! We regularly get around 20-30 daily when we fill the feeders, they raid the mealworm and suet pellets and are a joy to watch and hear! They are excellent mimics and repeat sounds they have heard so their calls are very varied. During our hour the maximum Starlings at one time was only 11 today.

We also received visits from 1x Magpie, 2x Carrion Crows, 3x Blue Tits, 2x Dunnocks, 2x Wood Pigeons and 2x House Sparrows. At 10:17 our hour was up! The simple task of entering the results onto the RSPB website was next and the national results and conclusions will follow in a couple of months. We enjoyed our hour and hopefully we helped to make a small difference but overall we know that we made a difference to our birds, especially in winter when natural food sources are few and far between they need supplementing with garden feeders.

We get our bird food from supermarkets and stores such as B&M or Home Bargains, and feeders can even be made from your recycling as my daughter did with an old milk container. So the worlds largest wildlife survey is free to join in, doesn’t have to cost anything (maybe a bit of bird food) and is great for everyone to enjoy together. Ultimately the data collected goes a long way to conserving UK wildlife so I urge everyone to partake in next years big garden birdwatch!

All images copyright to Graham Perkin

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