Birdwatch will help RSPB run reserves
Did you take part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the weekend? I was surprised in my own garden to see the highest number of birds this winter in that week. This presumably reflects the gradual lack of natural food as winter progresses and the greater attraction therefore of the bird feeders.
So instead of the usual four blackbirds during the last four months this went up to six.
This caused mayhem among the four locals who had worked out a pecking order but now had two others they did not want to share the food with.
The dominant blackbird remained the old mother, now about five years old, who has reared a dozen youngsters at least over those years.
The four cock blackbirds this week gave her a wide berth as did one of her daughters from last year.
There was also a great deal of squabbling among the robins, six being counted where normally only two defend the feeding station and very quickly see off any others.
In the allotted hour for the RSPB count I recorded the usual ten blue-tits drinking in the frying pans or feeding on the seed hangers together with two great tits, one marsh tit and one cole tit.
We were not supposed to count birds flying over the garden so I did not include the raven which is hanging around somewhere in the woods of the nature reserve, possibly with a nest soon to be finished, and with eggs in mid-february if the weather stays open.
Blackheaded gulls were also not counted as they flew over. They hunt ploughed land far away or maybe were on their way to the ponds around Midhurst or Petworth Park.
Nor was the buzzard or the red kite counted as they did not land in the garden – and never do.
I hoped for a goshawk landing on the roof of the outbuilding as it did a few months ago having tried to kill a woodpigeon in the garden but which it missed. But the flocks of finches that fly around the woods did come into the
garden, attracted by the water in the frying pans.
My total was ten goldfinches, 12 siskins and a couple of redpolls.
It is wonderful to see them bobbing forwards and backwards like clockwork. Four dunnocks were counted.
I could not include the tree-creeper which is occasionally seen from the kitchen window as it ascends the trunk of the old oak tree on the edge of the garden.
We have seen it occasionally and it will probably come to nest again in the larch lap boards of the garage where it will squeeze into a gap one inch wide and make its nest of old sycamore leaf stems.
It is a secretive bird at the best of times. I can no longer hear its ultra-high trill of a song which can be heard 100 yards away if you have very young ears.
Three wood pigeons came to feed on the last of the ivy berries which cling around hawthorn and ash trees in the garden.
A pair of great spotted woodpeckers came into the bird feeder. The male with a red patch on the back of his head, has been drumming since before Christmas last year. Our tame old cock pheasant, known as Charlie, appeared within the hour as well.
Birds that no longer nest or visit the garden include starling, collared dove, green woodpecker, kestrel, and greenfinch.
The results of this bird count will, country-wide, provide a catchment of bird-watchers who may now be tempted to join the RSPB and provide necessary cash to run their chain of reserves across the country.