Big Garden Birdwatch - 2014

It's that time of year again. Time to do the RSPB's big garden birdwatch. Otherwise known as big migrations of birds to somewhere that is not my garden. The idea is to count the birds that land in the garden during a one hour period.

It was very damp and misty and, at first, I thought I wasn't going to get anything at all. I had heard some bird song when I left the house to fetch the paper but no sign of any birds landing in the garden.

While I was doing my birdwatch, I was amused by the starlings that perched just outside the garden. I wasn't so happy about the magpies that frightened the little birds off.

So here are my numbers for this and a few previous birdwatches.  This year, during a spell of record breaking wet weather, we had fewer species than previously but we had greater numbers of individuals thanks to our starlings boucing back from last year's poor showing.

	2011 Saturday, 29 Jan	2012 Sunday, 29 Jan	2013 Saturday, 26 Jan	2014 Saturday, 25 Jan
Start time	8.45 am	8.45 am	9.07am	8.50 am
Weather	dull, icy		cold, bright	damp, misty
House Sparrow	3	4
Blue tit	3	3	2	3
Starling	8	9	2	8
Blackbird	2	2	3	3
Woodpigeon	1		1	2
Great tit		1
Chaffinch	2
Robin	1	1	1	2
Collared Dove	2	1	1
Magpie	2	2	2	2
Pied Wagtail	1	1	1
Song Thrush	2		1
Dunnock	3	1
Coal Tit		1
Goldfinch			1
No of species	12	11	10	6
No of individuals	30	26	15	20

If you are reading this on the weekend I wrote it, you can still fit your hour in. Just spend an hour noting the birds that land in your garden or other patch of ground and submit your results using the RSPB website.

Lime Aid - A Great Stressbuster

You might think that, after a hard week at the keyboard, I wouldn't be rushing out to do more work on a Saturday morning. You would be wrong. It is a great stress buster and very satisfying.

Today is the first of a sequence of work mornings run by Lime Aid.  If you are interested in coming along we are doing another two on the 8th of February and the 8th of March.  This time about eight of us turned up and managed to trim away the growth from the bases of loads of trees.

My first tree - before and after.

After the relentless rain of the last couple of weeks the morning's sun was a delight. It was noticeable how advanced the leaves of all the wild flowers were. I wasn't really looking very hard but saw foliage of Cow parsley, angelica, wild arum and primroses. 

My third tree - before and after.

It was also lovely to hear the birds chattering and twittering. I saw a few blue tits perched on the hedge between the avenue and the school.  I believe the ones I heard were blackbirds and robins but I didn't see any this time.

Last year I found a geocache. This year there was nothing so exciting but plenty of litter including, would you believe, discarded nappies.