Big Garden Birdwatch 24

A poor show, dominated by wood pigeons, we don’t have any trees in our small garden, but have woods about 750m away. All the small birds were in next doors trees teasing me.

I've just finished my count. I noticed that there are fewer chaffinches this year, I only saw 2 perched on the bushes.
This may be because we are out of bird seed at present, so they only have the peanuts to eat.

We did our hour this morning.

At first I thought nothing was going to turn up at all as usual at birdwatch hour but then they came in ones and twos. I was glad that there was a question about whether this is normal/more/less than usual for the garden when I was putting in the results as we usually have little flocks visiting in relays!
Glad to have spent the time just looking; feel very relaxed now!

I’ve just done my hour lots of birds today it’s a nice but cold day for it, but the lovely Grt Spotted Woodpecker who visited twice yesterday didn’t show. I finally saw the difference between a house sparrow and a tree sparrow I’d probably been counting them altogether before.
How’s everyone else got on?

Juliet27 I use Merlin too. It's brilliant isn't it.

Yes Beauregard it’s not always made clear is it.

A Jay turned up in the garden yesterday. I bet he won’t turn up on Birdwatch day. I use Merlin for sound recordings and it’s amazing how many bird sounds are picked up around my garden without me seeing them. Well hidden in trees and bushes it seems.

I didn’t realise that Beauregard! Thank you 😃

Massive panic in the garden today as a raptor keeps flying in at the speed of light - must be very hungry.

I do it every year. Last year a greater spotted woodpecker appeared on the peanut feeder at just the right time. I'd never seen one in the garden before, but heard them in the nearby woods.

I always do it and a couple of years ago, as if by magic, lots of different species turned up but I doubt I'll be that lucky again. I will be using binoculars to make sure I can identify the small birds correctly. Good luck, everyone. This is important citizen science.

MaizieD and Squiffy You count the highest number of birds you see in your garden at the same time. So if you see three blackbirds at once, then later you see two blackbirds, then the number reported would be three, not five. Therefore you wouldn't be able to count the same birds more than once.

It’ll be the first time I’ve done it, kept meaning to, I hope the pigeons and magpies clear off for an hour!

Same here MaizieD!

The birds queue up on our and our neighbours’ tv aerial every day waiting for their cafe to be restocked, but I can guarantee that they will be conspicuous by their absence on BW Day!

Yes, I’ve wondered about counting the same birds more than once!

I've tried to do it in past years but every time I sit down to count in the allotted time my very popular bird feeders are suddenly empty of birds...

And how do you know that you're not counting the same bird more than once?

I do it every year too. Occasionally an interesting bird comes to my garden but never on Birdwatch day!

We do it every year. Our garden is usually full of birds of all sorts but without fail most disappear on the day we do the bird watch 😄 We have been known to do it on both days of the weekend so we can report what we normally see but never report more than a few blue tits, pigeons and robins.