Saturday, January 26, 2008

Big Garden Birdwatch - done

It's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend again. I've just done my count, from 10.15 to 11.15am:
  • Greenfinch: 12
  • Chaffinch: 7
  • Jackdaw: 7
  • Great Tit: 4
  • Blue Tit: 3
  • Robin: 3
  • Dunnock: 2
  • Coal Tit: 1
  • Sparrowhawk: 1
  • Wren: 1
  • Great Spotted Woodpecker: 1
  • Blackbird: 1
Looking at my results from last year, some things are pretty much the same while others have changed slightly. I had the same number of Jackdaws and Chaffinches, but fewer Blue Tits. No Long-tailed Tit or Stock Dove this year, but we had a visit from a Sparrowhawk (perhaps the same one as the other day; it used the same hunting strategy). I counted six times more Greenfinches this year than last.

It's hard to draw conclusions from that but my bit of 'science' will go into the pot with everyone else's.

Most annoyingly, I didn't see any Marsh Tits or Tree Sparrows, which were both seen yesterday.

Marsh Tits are occasional visitors, dropping in briefly to grab a sunflower seed and then disappearing.

Until yesterday, we'd had only one Tree Sparrow before, in November, which stayed two days and cleared off. Three were seen together yesterday, joining the Greenfinches underneath the feeders.

No sign of them yet today. I did consider waiting til they showed before commencing my count, but that felt like cheating and anyway, I might have been waiting all day.

3 comments:

  1. Hi there, Katie :-)

    My count didn't differ too much from last year either. Although we saw no starlings at all this time and there were 13 last year. Oh yes and a female sparrowhawk perched itself on my shed over looking the feeders! Ah well...

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  2. We have a truckload of starlings. They fly in to steal the hens' food. I also saw a flock of probably 300 in the fields behind my mother's on Saturday.

    Good news about the greenfinches - a personal favourite of mine.

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  3. Hello. We've had large numbers of Greenfinches in recent months. I wonder if they'd come from someone's game strip? Maybe that's where the Tree Sparrows stayed. They haven't been seen since Friday, the little gits...

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