RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2016

[voodoopenguin]

Twice a year over here the RSPB holds its Big Garden Birdwatch weekends. For one hour over the designated weekend (you choose when) you log all birds that are in your garden. Only birds that have actually landed, not just flying over, and you count for each species the most number seen at the same time to prevent counting the same bird more than once.

Our tally this morning was:

Reed Bunting 9
Great Tit 2
Blue Tit 3
Magpie 1
Blackbird 1
Wood Pigeon 2
Dunnock 1
Chaffinch 2
Goldfinch 4
Greenfinch 1
Robin 1
Feral Pigeon 2

It has been known in previous years that despite having many visitors to the garden, in the hour we choose we hardly see any but it's not a competition so even seeing nothing is valid information for the RSPB. A good quantity were seen in our hour but there were notable absences, we have a family of jackdaws that nest each year in a fake chimney but we didn't see any of them.

We love our goldfinches and here are a few pix taken during the hour. Please note that to prevent scaring them these were taken at almost maximum zoom through double glazed windows and it was raining! That's my excuse.

[DP]

Damn beautiful! I wish we had goldfinches like that here. The counting sounds fun. Maybe we should have a forum bird count...

[A-Polly]

Love the photos — your goldfinches are so colorful! Very cool event. I like the restriction to birds alight, and one specific hour.

I've been thinking about participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count coming up (3rd weekend in February), but I believe they allow counting of birds that fly over, as long as they are identifiable.
http://gbbc.birdcount.org

[mrlynn]

I assume that, like ours, those goldfinches turn bright yellow in the summer; that must make for a stunning combination with the red, white and black heads.

Your shots came out real well. What camera were you using?

/Mr Lynn

[voodoopenguin]

mrlynn wrote:
I assume that, like ours, those goldfinches turn bright yellow in the summer

Ours are different, that is their year round colour and both sexes are similar. The female has slightly less red than the male.

mrlynn wrote:
Your shots came out real well. What camera were you using?

Good old SX40 on Auto setting.

A-Polly wrote:
I like the restriction to birds alight, and one specific hour.

If we were allowed flying over there would have been a load more but this is specifically for garden birds. Two types of geese (they never land in the garden), various gull varieties (they do occasionally swoop down to pick up food but rarely land), starlings (common visitor), rooks, pheasant (occasionally visit) and others were seen during the hour but not on their legs on our property.

Paul

[Rick-o]

Very nice! (tu)

[Black]

They look like they are trying to stare you down the whole time :-)

[Black]

Here's what mine would look like:
Black Capped Chickadee: 3
English House Sparrow: 50-1,000 (estimate)

[GuyGene]

Wow, voo, great! I've recorded 47 species in our yard over the years, including crows and buzzards. All landed in except the buzzards, but they were circling overhead smacking their lips at me.

[mrlynn]

GuyGene wrote:
Wow, voo, great! I've recorded 47 species in our yard over the years, including crows and buzzards. All landed in except the buzzards, but they were circling overhead smacking their lips at me.

Look alive! It's a buzzard!

(Don't know where that came from. Maybe Pogo?)

/Mr Lynn