For those of you who don’t know, it was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch at the weekend. People all over the country were encouraged to spend an hour watching their garden and recording the birds they spotted. You weren’t allowed to count the birds that fly over your garden, just the ones actually in it, and you only counted the maximum number of one type of bird at any one time (so as not to just count the same bird over and over again).
Little Owl and I sat down at her bedroom window to take part. Her bedroom has a perfect view over the garden but is far enough away that we wouldn’t frighten anything off in our excitement. We started off in great trepidation because we had spotted Luca, next door’s giant furry Tom, on the prowl…he was going to ruin everything! Fortunately, after a quick sniff around he decided he had important business elsewhere in the street and we were able to continue. Phew! We also had to tell Big Dreamer off for noisily hunting for something in the garage. Bash, bash, slam, bang. He can’t do anything quietly! Little Owl trained her Early Learning Centre binoculars on our bird feeder and on the ash tree that over hangs our garden. What might we see?
It is amazing what you do spot when you sit down quietly and just watch the garden. Clouds scudded overhead, the breeze swayed the branches of the ash tree and a grey squirrel darted between fence posts. In the end we spotted a seagull, some magpies, a pair of wood pigeons, a pair of blackbirds and a robin. Little Owl noted them down diligently in her notebook then we entered our findings on the RSPB website. As of this morning more than 200,000 people have taken part and over 4 million birds have been spotted. That’s pretty exciting isn’t it? I can’t wait to find out the final tally and hear of any rare sightings. Last year someone spotted a snow bunting on the Isle of Skye. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t know a snow bunting if it came up and knocked on the window!
