I'm with you on this flowers - I'd just like to know what they do with the data really.
I know that since I've been here, (almost three years) there are more birds visiting. I'd like to think that's because the garden is not the sterile, empty space it was, and I've been feeding the same way since the first autumn, with a few extras. For example, I rarely saw a blackbird, now there are two definite pairs, but is that just because they've now 'found' my restaurant or is it because there are more of them in the area?
I also have a wren visiting regularly, but didn't see it yesterday. What does that indicate for the survey?
You're right though Dove - hopefully it will increase interest in birds generally, and encourage people to make wildlife friendly spaces in gardens - no matter what size
Hope you're feeling a bit better today flowers
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
i completely agree with you Flowers, I don't want it to turn into a competition, I don't care if someone has 1 blue tit or a dozen, but when I see great,and I mean great, swarms of starlings but only one in the garden, then I hear starlings are in decline, I can't see the point in the one hour watch.
of course, when I have taken part in the survey before, I have received by post and email, begging letters from every animal charity around, and asking what I will be doing in my will.
daresay I could have ticked the box, but don't always see it.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
We did ours yesterday morning, when the sun was shining - fortunate as it's wet and windy today. We do have a very different reading from the last few years though. We have not seen any goldfinches at all and we used to have them nesting here, and flocks of them around the niger seed. No redpoll. No siskin for years. We do get a huge variety over the days, including greater and green woodpeckers. For the hour though it was mainly sparrows and dunnock which have been increasing each year, great, blue, and coal tits, blackbirds and a thrush. As Milton Keynes continues it's march towards us we have lost so many birds. So many new houses with the tiniest back yard, and the original gift of a tree for the front garden has long since disappeared as the houses no longer have front gardens to plant them in.
Lyn - it's unsurprising that charities have been getting a bad name in the press recently. Totally with you on the junk mail, and it's so easy to miss the box tick thing.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have just posted my bird count onto the RSPB site, was delighted to include 3 siskins (stroppy little individuals they are!) and four goldcrests. There was a total of 15 different varieties during the hour, with 17 collared doves, much to my delight. We only had 2 for the count last year, and since then have been actively wooing them, and it has paid off. They now congregate in the trees here early morning and wait for my husband to call them for food. I'm sure we have at least 4 nuthatches, because they visited the feeders in such quick succession, and all took off in different directions, but I only saw two at one time. Only 1 robin seen, but three of them heard in different locations. The one I did see is very clever, he has laid claim to the area near the feeders, and woe betide anyone who trespasses onto his turf! I must set up another sunflower heart feeder around the corner. How much space do robins want? It's fascinating how much more you become aware of when you just stay still for an hour and watch, normally I just glance out the window in passing, and only spend time there while washing the dishes.
I did mine yesterday, just as well as it would have been quite boring today, absolutely bucketing down. I got nearly all the regular callers, though the woodpecker didn't show up.
I did get a flock of starlings, Flowers, within my hour, and counted them, as one came on to the bird feeder and the others were feeding literally inches away, though the 'wrong' side of a wire fence, so technically not my garden but a neighbour's field. I told RSPB about it so they could count it as one bird or 50, whichever they choose.
I share your view; as you say, you can do the count in a park, where conceivably other people could be counting the same birds as you, and no one else was looking at this piece of land except me. It isn't altogether clear whether they do only want garden birds, as the whole thing is inevitably slanted heavily towards suburbia; if I look out of the back windows I have a wide view over a different part of our garden and our own sheep fields and in the past have counted what I saw there, like fieldfares, without regarding the boundary.
My count was therefore: 1 starling or 50 (depending on how you interpret the rules)
8 chaffinches, 5 greenfinches, 4 blackbirds, 2 goldfinches, 2 robins, 2 pheasants, 1 dunnock, 1 great tit, 1 blue tit, 1 coal tit and 1 reedbunting.
All genuine, within the time limit, seen from my bedroom window. Though one of the pheasants (Fritzi!)is almost tame and feeds with the hens and ducks, he is still wild and lives somewhere down in the sheepfield, among the rushes.
Has anyone else been checking on the RSPB webcam? I have been popping in throughout the day, have seen a few birds there, and one squirrel (was puzzled that it didn't try to climb the wooden post supporting all the hanging feeders - couldn't see all the way down the post so maybe there is a baffle preventing access). However, the food supply does not seem to have diminished at all, and am now wondering if this is a film being run on a loop a la 'Speed' (that film with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Anyone got any ideas?
Posts
I'm with you on this flowers - I'd just like to know what they do with the data really.
I know that since I've been here, (almost three years) there are more birds visiting. I'd like to think that's because the garden is not the sterile, empty space it was, and I've been feeding the same way since the first autumn, with a few extras. For example, I rarely saw a blackbird, now there are two definite pairs, but is that just because they've now 'found' my restaurant or is it because there are more of them in the area?
I also have a wren visiting regularly, but didn't see it yesterday. What does that indicate for the survey?
You're right though Dove - hopefully it will increase interest in birds generally, and encourage people to make wildlife friendly spaces in gardens - no matter what size
Hope you're feeling a bit better today flowers
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
It can't hope to be a scientific study - but it can show trends, and as I said, it can encourage a wider interest.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Agree with you dove , Just finished 2 blackbirds , 16 starlings,2 wood pigeons and 5 jackdaws
i completely agree with you Flowers, I don't want it to turn into a competition, I don't care if someone has 1 blue tit or a dozen, but when I see great,and I mean great, swarms of starlings but only one in the garden, then I hear starlings are in decline, I can't see the point in the one hour watch.
of course, when I have taken part in the survey before, I have received by post and email, begging letters from every animal charity around, and asking what I will be doing in my will.
daresay I could have ticked the box, but don't always see it.
We did ours yesterday morning, when the sun was shining - fortunate as it's wet and windy today. We do have a very different reading from the last few years though. We have not seen any goldfinches at all and we used to have them nesting here, and flocks of them around the niger seed. No redpoll. No siskin for years. We do get a huge variety over the days, including greater and green woodpeckers. For the hour though it was mainly sparrows and dunnock which have been increasing each year, great, blue, and coal tits, blackbirds and a thrush. As Milton Keynes continues it's march towards us we have lost so many birds. So many new houses with the tiniest back yard, and the original gift of a tree for the front garden has long since disappeared as the houses no longer have front gardens to plant them in.
Lyn - it's unsurprising that charities have been getting a bad name in the press recently. Totally with you on the junk mail, and it's so easy to miss the box tick thing.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
I have just posted my bird count onto the RSPB site, was delighted to include 3 siskins (stroppy little individuals they are!) and four goldcrests. There was a total of 15 different varieties during the hour, with 17 collared doves, much to my delight. We only had 2 for the count last year, and since then have been actively wooing them, and it has paid off. They now congregate in the trees here early morning and wait for my husband to call them for food. I'm sure we have at least 4 nuthatches, because they visited the feeders in such quick succession, and all took off in different directions, but I only saw two at one time. Only 1 robin seen, but three of them heard in different locations. The one I did see is very clever, he has laid claim to the area near the feeders, and woe betide anyone who trespasses onto his turf! I must set up another sunflower heart feeder around the corner. How much space do robins want? It's fascinating how much more you become aware of when you just stay still for an hour and watch, normally I just glance out the window in passing, and only spend time there while washing the dishes.
I did mine yesterday, just as well as it would have been quite boring today, absolutely bucketing down. I got nearly all the regular callers, though the woodpecker didn't show up.
I did get a flock of starlings, Flowers, within my hour, and counted them, as one came on to the bird feeder and the others were feeding literally inches away, though the 'wrong' side of a wire fence, so technically not my garden but a neighbour's field. I told RSPB about it so they could count it as one bird or 50, whichever they choose.
I share your view; as you say, you can do the count in a park, where conceivably other people could be counting the same birds as you, and no one else was looking at this piece of land except me. It isn't altogether clear whether they do only want garden birds, as the whole thing is inevitably slanted heavily towards suburbia; if I look out of the back windows I have a wide view over a different part of our garden and our own sheep fields and in the past have counted what I saw there, like fieldfares, without regarding the boundary.
My count was therefore: 1 starling or 50 (depending on how you interpret the rules)
8 chaffinches, 5 greenfinches, 4 blackbirds, 2 goldfinches, 2 robins, 2 pheasants, 1 dunnock, 1 great tit, 1 blue tit, 1 coal tit and 1 reedbunting.
All genuine, within the time limit, seen from my bedroom window. Though one of the pheasants (Fritzi!)is almost tame and feeds with the hens and ducks, he is still wild and lives somewhere down in the sheepfield, among the rushes.
Has anyone else been checking on the RSPB webcam? I have been popping in throughout the day, have seen a few birds there, and one squirrel (was puzzled that it didn't try to climb the wooden post supporting all the hanging feeders - couldn't see all the way down the post so maybe there is a baffle preventing access). However, the food supply does not seem to have diminished at all, and am now wondering if this is a film being run on a loop a la 'Speed' (that film with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Anyone got any ideas?
I could do with a food supply that doesn't diminish - yesterday they ate their way down half a large feeder