The RSPB run the big garden birdwatch every year and it has become one of the biggest wildlife surveys in the world. Every year in January we are encouraged to watch birds in our garden or local green space and to record what we see. The RSPB can then build up a very good picture of how our garden birds are faring.
We were excited to welcome along Daniel from the RSPB to show us exactly how it should be done. He brought along some colourful bird charts to help us identify what we saw, plus some pairs of lovely new binoculars (sadly we had to give them back at the end of the workshop!)
The weather was awful but we dutifully made sure all our bird feeders were clean and full of seed. He then explained that you spend an hour watching the birds but you only count the birds that land and you only record the maximum number of any species that land at any one time. We had a good selection of pigeons, but we also saw a robin, a blackbird and lots of sparrows. We saw 2 magpies, these have only spread into the East of Scotland in the last 10 years or so. The binoculars were a great asset but not essential.
If you are watching the birds at home try to site the feeders near a bit of cover from bushes as most of the birds like to fly in and out of the cover to the feeders. It can be very relaxing just taking time out to watch the birds and it's a brilliant way to get children interested in nature.
