The world has gone white once more. Now it is with very heavy frost.
The weekend was the weekend of the RSPB annual garden birdwatch. As you will probably have realised by now, I'm always happy to have an excuse for spending an hour watching the birds in our garden. I got around to doing it yesterday.
I was surprised with the results. It seemed quite different from last year. The harsh winter must be having its effect.
We seem to have been taken over by starlings this year. We rarely have any. This time I counted 16 at one time! When I told our friend, Den, this, he demanded the return of his starlings. They've disappeared from their garden. Now he suspects he knows where they've gone!
I was shocked by the depletion of house sparrows. These cheeky chappies have been regular visitors to our restaurant over the years. But this time just 2 appeared, one male & one female. As for dunnocks, forget them.
The one unexpected surprise was the appearance of a mistle thrush scuttling across our frozen lawn. I haven't seen one of those for years. They seem symbolic of the garden of my childhood. It came as a shock to discover their absence here. At least we seem to encouraged the blackbirds to return with a certain amount of careful neglect of our garden.
As usual I question the validity of the results. Most days a magpie haunts our garden but it didn't put in an appearance yesterday so isn't included in the count. I can only hope a neighbour has been similarly busy & counted it there.
1 comment:
We never seem to have the variety of visitors (within any one hour time span) when the time for birdwatch comes around!
I always wonder whether to start from when the first birds visit or, do I simply decide on the hour. I participate but doubt whether the results are of any great value.
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