Start close to home

Doing a garden bird survey is the perfect way to start the year, so what are you waiting for?!

Every January, we urge you all to take part in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, and we’re certainly not going to be breaking the habit of half a lifetime in 2020.

For those of you who don’t know, it involves you watching the birds that visit your garden over just one hour on the weekend in question (25-27 January, this year), and then recording the highest number of each species that were in the garden at any one time (rather than the total number seen, on the basis that using the latter method, you could be seeing the same birds twice). Full details of how to take part are at: rspb.org.uk/get-involved/ activities/birdwatch/

It provides valuable indicators of species population trends, but another great side benefit is that it should help you get to know your garden birds better.

So, why stop at January? The BTO’s Garden BirdWatch project: bto.org/our-science/ projects/gbw runs throughout the year, with those taking part making weekly observations and reports, and again the data provided by all you citizen scientists is used to identify problems and trends, and to target conservation help where it’s most needed.

Of course, you could do your own regular garden bird survey anyway, but if you’re going to go to the trouble of collecting the information, why not ensure that it gets put to good use?

But, whichever you choose to do (and why not try all three approaches?), now’s as good a time as any to become a born-again garden birder. After all, it’s where a lot of us got started in the first place, it’s an easy way to get your fix of birding in the middle of everyday life, and once you know your garden birds well, you’ll find that a lot more species start to become much easier to recognise.

In your garden this month…

It’s a nice, gentle start to the year. Stay in the warm, and plan how to improve your garden for wildlife in 2020. Why not set yourself five or 10 tasks – we guarantee you’ll be surprised how much difference even one or two can make.

Get kitted out

Every garden birder needs a pair of binoculars to hand at all times. They don’t have to be expensive or high spec – in fact, it’s better that they should be robust, but essentially expendable. After all, as they’re going to live on the kitchen windowsill, they stand a good chance of ending up in the washing-up bowl, or getting covered with coffee. Keep your best bins for ‘the field’, and invest in an inexpensive second pair for the garden.

You tell us

OK, so we’ve given you some ideas about how to make your gardens more friendly for birds and other wildlife. But what about your gardens? Please tell us what you’ve done, and which birds you get visiting, and of course include some photos, and we’ll share your successes with Bird Watching readers. Email us at: birdwatching@bauermedia.co.uk, or write to us at: Bird Watching, Media House, Lynch Wood, Peterborough PE2 6EA