I’ve spent an hour this morning doing the RSPB Great Garden Birdwatch - it’s a very pleasant way to spend some time on a sunny morning.
Garden Birdwatch day must be like Christmas day in the avian calendar (or it would be if birds had a calendar). There’s a lot of competition among spotters to get their numbers up, so all kinds of tasty treats go on the bird table.
Those not prepared to lavish mealworm and other delicacies on the local robin population risk being shunned in favour of more generous recorders.
Well, I’ve been caught out before, so this year my feeders were primed with the finest sunflower seed, the fattest peanuts I could find, some ground mix for those twitterers too full to hang from a feeder and - the champagne truffle of the bird world - a scattering of mealworms.
My hour got off to a good start when Margaret spotted an unusual bird on the trunks of the conifers by the patio. Normally, Margaret’s unusual birds turn out to be be wood pigeons, but this time she struck gold - she’d spotted a tree creeper from the kitchen window. He was working his way up the bare trunks, examining the cracks in the bark for insects and grubs. He spent a good few minutes searching the trees - tree creeper was a first for me in the Garden Birdwatch.
This year, it wasn’t very busy and the usual suspects turned up for a free feed. Everything went very quiet about halfway through the hour and I was wondering why when I spotted a large kestrel sitting in the top of the walnut tree at the bottom of the garden. He was looking for a tasty meal, but all the tasty meals had hidden themselves in the hawthorn hedge.
This year’s bird watch was notable for the appearance of the tree creeper, but it was also interesting for a number of absences. There was no wood pigeon anywhere, no starlings, no thrushes and no house sparrows (although their browner, duller cousins, the Dunnock were the most numerous).
This was my count:
Dunnock 6
Chaffinch 4
Blackbird 3
Robin 2
Blue tit 2
Greenfinch 2
Great tit 2
Collared dove 1
Tree creeper 1
Since the Great Garden Birdwatch, the tree creeper has been a regular visitor to the garden and has been spotted three or four times. I'm sure he's a new visitor because he's quite distinctive and we would have spotted him earlier had he been coming. The conifers and corkscrew hazel are part of his rounds and I hope this is a sign that there's more insect life in the garden than there was.
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