THE BIG GARDEN BIRDWATCH

Once again the garden was under surveillance for an hour over the weekend as three pairs of eyes scanned for bird life.

With two feeders placed on a recently trimmed tree, an upstairs window gave the perfect vantage point to spot incoming birds.

As two children under the age of seven were involved, it proved slightly more ‘interesting’ than just one adult, but it was great to see the young eyes getting excited about seeing a bird and then being able to tell what it was.

One person was in charge of the scoring chart, and the other two had binoculars to confirm the visitors and number.

In line with what is known about bird visitors to the garden from the last nine years of watching, the results weren’t too unsurprising.

House sparrows came out top of the pile, closely followed by great tits and blackbirds.

Blue tits were next on the list, followed by magpies, long tailed tits, dunnocks, woodpigeons, goldfinches and tree sparrows.

One thing that wasn’t included in the birdwatch survey was a tawny owl, and no sooner had I mentioned about not hearing or seeing any for a while, than one was heard calling late one evening last week.

It was hunting over one particular nearby field, but hasn’t been heard of since during the evening and was gone after a short time.

The nest box cameras haven’t seen much action, but one of them (the older one) is seemingly unable to record at night now. The next thing on the list will be a new camera, but I think the birds are not using the nest boxes for roosting because of the relatively warm winter, so far.

Time will tell, but I hope that both cameras will be able to see some action this year, particularly as I’ve changed the opening slot to the newest camera box.