Jan 26th & 27th Waterloo Park and Norwich

It is the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch weekend once again. It happens to be the 40th anniversary since the this nationwide public garden bird survey began. Since 1979, this annual event in which anyone with a garden can record the number of birds that visit it for an hour has been a valuable source of data that acts like a health check to see how each winter has effected the numbers of each of the commonest garden visiting species. Throughout the years, the information received has indicated that there has been plenty of ups and downs in each species population numbers, some interesting trends and so much more. It is time to do it all over again for the 40th time.

The RSPB event at Waterloo Park

On Saturday, I was at Waterloo Park where the RSPB were holding a special event to help promote the Big Garden Birdwatch. Small RSPB tents were put up in two areas of the park. One was a bird feeder building station for children to build basic bird feeders with a loop of wire and pieces of fruit lard to slot into. A second tent was in a much quieter corner of the park overlooking some feeders that had recently been placed in the last month. This was where I was stationed for a couple of hours that morning, busy counting the birds and showing them to families while also teaching children as young as 4 on how to use binoculars properly. Of course, I was not the only one helping out, other RSPB volunteers and members of the Friends of Waterloo Park had turned up to lend a hand too.

Preparing the bird feeder building tent

The bird spotting tent

Doing my part at the bird spotting tent

Me with Lindsey Chapman

The event was a lot of fun and so many people showed up. We also had Lindsey Chapman from Springwatch turn up as our celebrity guest and was doing hourly vlogs on Facebook about what's happening at the park. As for birds, the feeder area was definitely the place to be. We used our tent as a makeshift hide, though it was better spotting the birds by standing outside it. Greenfinches and blue tits were the most numerous species using the feeders and the trees close by, though we also had dunnocks, great tits, coal tit, robins, blackbirds, chaffinches, goldfinches, collard doves, woodpigeons and in the sky, a sparrowhawk circling high above as well as a pied wagtail and 4 gull species. The public helped to tally up what we saw on a whiteboard and the count continued throughout the day long after my couple of hours were over. So, I have no idea what the final count was in the end. However, I do know that the event was a massive hit!

Blue Tit

Greenfinch

Collard Dove



Goldfinch



Coal Tit

Robin

My parent's garden

This morning (Sunday 27th), it was finally time to do my part in the Big Garden Birdwatch by helping out with two surveys in two different gardens as I don't have one myself. First up was my parent's garden. Dad was prepared for the survey and went outside before I started to set up the feeders. What I was not expecting was that he had bought some cakes, biscuits and a loaf of bread in preparation for the occasion and covered his lawn with them all in the hope of luring in the birds. The plan started well, but in the end, a majority of the hour was quiet and I only tallied up 2 blackbirds, 1 dunnock, 1 woodpigeon, 1 blue tit and 3 great tits. That's 8 birds in total. The banquet that Dad set up was largely untouched during the survey.

Blackbird

Great Tit

My Aunt Barbara's Garden

Next up was my Aunt Barbara's garden. Last year, we failed to count a single bird within the hour here. So expectation wasn't very high. However, in the first few minutes of this year's survey, we had already did one better than last year by one bird; a woodpigeon. But then, nothing. As the clock ticked by, we were just staring at an empty, bird-less garden. Was one single pigeon all we were going to get? Thankfully, the answer was no as the birds decided to show up in the last 5 minutes. And what an eventful 5 minutes they were! We ended up with 2 woodpigeons, 1 robin, 2 blackbirds and 4 starlings. A total of 9 birds. That's one more than we counted at my parent's garden!

Woodpigeon

Blackbird

Starling

Gulls coming in to pinch Dad's food offerings!

While Dad and I were at Barbara's, Mum was watching the garden and the banquet Dad set up was attracting some attention. From above, a flock of black-headed gulls dived down into the garden for the cake, biscuits and bread. In minutes, the lawn was empty of food offerings. Mum took these photos with her phone. If only it happened during the hour I was surveying in!