If you have not already done so, now is the time to fill up your garden bird feeders for the Big Garden BirdWatch this weekend. All you have to do is count the number of each bird species seen during a period of one hour. You must have seen the bird guide and instructions somewhere!
Sally and I keep a close watch on the birds in our garden throughout the year and record what we see on a (ir)regular basis. Last Friday’s count gave us
8 collared doves , 4 feral pigeon, 1 robin, 2 blackbird (1 male and 1 female – each eating about 50+ mealworms each day!), 20+ house sparrow, 2 blue tit, 5 chaffinch, 5 goldfinch, 5 starling, 1 woodpigeon, 2 greenfinch, 1 sparrowhawk, and, wait for it, 1 SONG THRUSH. (We missed great tit, wren, dunnock and magpie) The song thrush was only in the garden for about 20 seconds but it was the first for ages and ages! We went to Dungeness on Wednesday and saw bittern, great white egret, smew and bewicks swan – but a song thrush in the garden beats the lot.
Thanks to Terry for sending the photo of the sparrowhawk seen in his garden.
Malcolm