{"id":1930,"date":"2022-02-02T14:53:36","date_gmt":"2022-02-02T14:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/?p=1930"},"modified":"2022-02-04T09:23:57","modified_gmt":"2022-02-04T09:23:57","slug":"our-january-bird-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ossettweather.com\/gardening2022\/susan\/our-january-bird-count\/","title":{"rendered":"Our unofficial January garden bird count."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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As I mentioned in my previous post, we completely forgot about the RSPB Garden Bird Count at the end of last month.<\/p>

We didn’t completely forget, but our memory didn’t kick in until late Sunday. We thought that the count carried on until Monday 31 January as we were sure that in previous years the count carried through to the Monday but it seems we were wrong. To be honest, the official count weekend probably won’t record typical bird activity, as the birds seemed to have been hunkering down during the gales.<\/p>

As we have taken part in the Birdwatch since 2012 and I have kept my own records since then, we decided to carry out an unofficial count. I can’t submit our results but at least I can record them.<\/p>

It was still very windy on Monday morning when we decided to count our visitors and the number of birds visiting was much lower than usual. Those that did visit were difficult to count as they were very skittish.<\/p>

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We only spotted ten different species which, as you can see from the chart below, is low for us. I think there were far more sparrows and goldfinches than we managed to count. These species were very nervous about landing on the feeders which were being buffeted in the wind.\u00a0 They darted about making counting individuals almost impossible.<\/p>

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If you compare previous year’s records, you will note that most years with the exception of 2016 we usually count between thirty and fifty birds. This year was the worse year yet, but I put this down to the weather conditions rather than a decline in bird visitors as the food we put out is being taken as usual.<\/p>

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Other than the low number of sparrows and goldfinches recorded, there were other noticeable differences. It’s the first year that we didn’t count a single starling. We haven’t actually seen many if any, starlings in the garden this year. It also seems that our growing wood pigeon population has nudged aside the collared doves. Although we only recorded one individual, we often have three or four wood pigeons strutting around.\u00a0 Ironically we were commenting on this, just after our count, when we spotted a collared dove in one of our trees. Generally, though, we are seeing them a lot less frequently.<\/p>

I was surprised that, this year was the first time that we have counted any greenfinches as they are fairly regular visitors.<\/p>

We often have a surprise visitor to the garden and this year our unusual guest is a female pheasant. She has seemed to have been about most days for a week or so. She stays for quite a while spending time pecking at crumbs dropped from the feeders and resting amongst the hellebores and shrubbery. Martyn posted a video of her here.<\/a><\/p>

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Despite the low numbers, sparrows and goldfinches remain the birds we counted the highest number of. There were probably more blackbirds around than we counted but, they too, were whizzing around and I think were also a bit wary of the pheasant hogging one of their favourite foraging areas.<\/p>

For those of you unfamiliar with our British garden birds, I have put together a collage of the birds that showed up for our count.<\/p>

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If you took part in the count, how did your experience compare to ours?<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I mentioned in my previous post, we completely forgot about the RSPB Garden Bird Count at the end of last month. We didn’t completely forget, but our memory didn’t kick in until late Sunday. We thought that the count carried on until Monday 31 January as we were sure that in previous years the 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