Big garden birdwatch

Absolutely blowing a gale, two blackbirds and a sparrow popped out for lunch, then went back in again. That’s all I’ve seen during my sit down.

It's blowing a gale here today and so the usual dunnocks, robins, blue tits and nuthatch are nowhere to be seen but the stronger, bigger birds like starlings, blackbirds and thrush have been this morning. Has anyone else noticed that they're having to put out more and more bird food this last few days? 5 fat balls a day at the moment!

Rather breezy here just now but hoping it'll be calmer tomorrow. We did a 'trial run' yesterday as this is a new garden for us but very little about in that hour - I think they get shy!

Oh, our garden was just pants this morning. One blackbird, and that was a fly-through. I dutifully submitted as the RSPB say even a no-record count is more information than a non-submission. But it was such a boring hour!

No sight or sound for the whole hour and just as I’m 1 minute over I can hear them tweeting away in the trees. I’m sure the birds know too and hide until Ive gone!?

Ours all disappeared today as well. Typical. I did see a Snow Bunting last week, though, which I’m very excited about.

We do t get as many as we used to. We stopped feeding the birds when we realised we were just providing a running buffet for the sparrowhawks.
We had to give one a place to recover when it crashed into our conservatory during its pursuit of its lunch.
We live very close to a hawk and owl trust so see them all the time, red kites, harriers too. They are lovely to watch.
This morning when I opened the curtains there were 6 magpies in the trees in the field. We closed the curtains again quickly. Gold will do us more good than a secret never to be told, we didn’t need to see any more!

Ours disappeared, as I predicted. But it was blowing and snowing, so I can't blame them. Did manage to get ones and twos of most of the species that we see, but none of the more interesting ones of course.

I started to do it yesterday and all was going well in our small garden in the middle of a town, plenty of finches, blackbird,pigeons, when suddenly in swooped a sparrowhawk which caught a blackbird and proceeded to eat it. Feathers everywhere and no more birdwatch. Intended try again today but no birds came near. No surprise there!

I did it. Not a great amount of birds mostly in ones and twos.
Not helped by the fact that there were two magpies and a squirrel around. Also a red kite gliding overhead.

I did it yesterday. It was very relaxing. Nothing too exciting, blackbirds, chaffinch, coal tit etc.

Has anyone done this? I did an hour today, but not that many varieties around between 12 & 1. I can’t log onto the RSPB website with my results, though, so obviously they’re inundated.

Yes, I’ll be watching. I get so much pleasure seeing all the varieties who visit our garden. There are woods behind our house so we get very many different birds, including woodpeckers, long-tailed tits, nuthatch, parakeets (too many) and more.

PollyDolly .
I might join - never heard of it before.
I've noticed that the birds that visit our small back garden come twice a day - first for breakfast then for lunch.
Maybe sleep in between.
Elsewhere today I watched a magpie starting to collect twigs for its nest.

One pigeon, two pigeons, three pigeons......??‍♀️?

Ours is another garden which normally has quite a lot of birds but they always all disappear completely on the bird count weekend. I suppose if we go around saying loudly that we'll count at 2pm, we might be able to do a sneaky count at 10am...

Greyduster

Mine will be the same as it has been in previous years since we moved here - six thousand greedy sparrows and a couple of randy wood pigeons. If we’re lucky there may be a blackbird. We could almost be classed as living in the country here but don’t see many interesting birds. My last garden on the edge of town, was alive with all manner of lovely feathered specimens.☹️

Same here Greyduster although we are beginning to see blue tits and goldfinch when they deem to come!
I blame the cats who frequent our garden, who have been known to catch a Blackbird or two over the years.
So I cant put any food on the floor for them now.

I shall be doing the bird watch at the weekend. I don’t think I will be doing much counting though.
We have new neighbours who have cut down and cut back most of the trees that were in their garden and the birds have all but disappeared over the last week or so.
Still I can still enjoy hot chocolate and cake while I hope to see a few.

Mine will be the same as it has been in previous years since we moved here - six thousand greedy sparrows and a couple of randy wood pigeons. If we’re lucky there may be a blackbird. We could almost be classed as living in the country here but don’t see many interesting birds. My last garden on the edge of town, was alive with all manner of lovely feathered specimens.☹️

Oo yes. Thanks for reminding me, Hazel.
Birdwatch triggers a pathetic competitive spirit in me. Five other gardens with bird feeders border on to mine so I'll need to lay on a massive spread that day to stop the "best" tweeties straying! On second thoughts that might mean I get the mob of feral pigeons and next door gets the rare woodpecker....
I usually watch for well over an hour and then pick the most productive 60 minutes. I don't think that's cheating is it?

Somebody must tip them off, Suzannah!

I do it online every year, and will certainly be counting our garden birds this weekend.

Septimia the same thing happens to us! Normally there are loads of birds in the garden but come the birdwatch and they all disappear. This year we've got a wagtail and we've never seen one in the garden before but I bet it disappears at the weekend.

I'll be watching too, but you can guarantee that the birds will all disappear during the hour I choose and reappear immediately afterwards.

More than once I've suggested that, as long as we only record the maximum number of each species that we see at one time, we should be able to watch over the whole weekend (or for as long as we wish).

Yes, I shall be watching. Already pleased that my robin has found a mate and hopefully they’ll make an appearance at the weekend.