Busy birds

Long-tailed tit
(Photo from RSPB website)

Spring has truly sprung, the days are brighter and longer, and the birds are busy rushing around everywhere.

Flocks of long-tailed tits are cleaning the climbing roses of bugs and picking spiders from around the windows frames. I went to open the door of the utility room and there was a little tit hovering just at eye-level outside. Very acrobatic little birds. The RSPB have just published the results of their annual Big Garden Birdwatch which took place in January. The long-tail tits used to be fairly rare but now have reached no 10 position in birds counted throughout the UK and 9 in the county of Leicestershire where we are.

These are the results for Leicestershire:

Species	Rank	Mean no of birds recorded	% gardens seeing bird
House_sparrow	1	4.1	63.3
Blackbird	2	2.9	92.5
Woodpigeon	3	2.6	83.3
Blue_tit	4	2.6	78.4
Starling	5	2.4	36.8
Goldfinch	6	1.8	34.6
Great_tit	7	1.5	59.1
Robin	8	1.4	83.2
Long_tailed_tit	9	1.3	28.9
Chaffinch	10	1.2	39.0
Magpie	11	1.0	51.2
Dunnock	12	1.0	53.0
Collared_dove	13	0.9	41.4
Jackdaw	14	0.6	16.6
Greenfinch	15	0.6	22.5
Coal_tit	16	0.6	31.7
Carrion_crow	17	0.6	23.2
Feral_pigeon	18	0.4	13.2
Wren	19	0.3	29.7
Common_gull	20	0.2	5.9

Looking at the results the long-tailed tit has reached no. 9 in the ranks but only being seen in less than 30% of gardens. Of course when they come, they come in flocks of 10 or sometimes more.

The crows and wood-pigeons are busy building nests. They are taking dried twigs, even pulling off twigs from the red-wood, silver-birch and plum trees. Our neighbour has a very vigorous laurel hedge which provides a nesting-place for many small birds, blackbirds and pigeons. There's a bit of activity by the row of nesting boxes on the summer house, although great-tits often nest on-top just under the roof.

Ducks are busy and even though there are several large ponds close by they seem to enjoy dabbling in the flooded stream that runs through Billy's field that surrounds our garden.

And of course the birds are singing like crazy, especially the black-birds, thrushes and robins. It's a delight to walk around the garden towards evening and hear them all in chorus.

Birdwatch 2014

We didn't do the RSPB Birdwatch this January - just ran out of time. Also we haven't been putting out nuts and seeds on the bird table so don't see as many visiting close to the house. Again - lack of time and also getting very expensive. The wood pigeons (and squirrels) are really greedy and "hoover" up as many peanuts and seeds as you can put out and this doesn't really seem to qualify as helping the wild life. This year we haven't had a big freeze so the little birds haven't been under a lot if stress.

The RSPB have just published the results http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/   I extracted the results for Leicestershire ranked by number of birds recorded in gardens and parks throughout the county:

1. House sparrow
2. Blackbird
3. Blue tit
4. Woodpigeon
5. Starling
6. Goldfinch
7. Great tit
8. Robin
9. Chaffinch
10. Collared dove
11. Dunnock
12. Magpie
13. Long tailed tit
14. Greenfinch
15. Jackdaw
16. Feral pigeon
17. Coal tit
18. Carrion crow
19. Wren
20. Bullfinch

Surprised at the number of goldfinches and starlings spotted. We occasionally see a small flock of goldfinches but can't remember the last time we had a starling in the garden. 

Our January 2013 results were a bit different. Without doing a proper count I'd say, this year, our most frequent visitors are:

1. Woodpigeon
2. Blackbird (lots nesting now - but there weren't so many around in January)
3. Robins
4. Great tits (nesting in boxes under the summer house roof)
5. Sparrows
6. Blue tits

The numbers vary during the year. Obviously there's many species that migrate which wouldn't show up on a once-a-year study like the fieldfares and swallows. Chaffinches and other finches travel around a lot too. 

Birdwatch 2013

Did the annual RSPB Birdwatch on Sunday between 1.30 and 2.30 in the afternoon. The idea is to count the maximum number of any bird species seen in the garden at any time. So although I saw a male blackbird then later on a female, because they were on their own each time that counts as one.

Counts as follows:

Blackbird        1
Sparrow          1
Woodpigeon   3  (sitting in the walnut tree)
Pheasant         2
Robin              1
Great-tit          2
Dunnock         2

Not much different from last year really:
http://froggartscottagegarden.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/birdwatch-results.html

I have no idea how the RSPB use these results to assess which bird species are booming or failing. Wonderful thing stats. Anyway we'll be looking out for the national and Leicestershire results soon.

Cuckoo

A cuckoo is cuckooing loudly from one of our two walnut trees. He was calling at 6 this morning and flying around and cuckooing since. They are late this year. Usually we hear them from April onwards.  I seem to remember a poem from childhood about cuckoos "changing their tune" in June, signifying I think, that the breeding season was over and the parents were soon back off to Africa. Apparently their offspring go later. Of course they abandon their eggs in some other poor bird's nest so there's no parental care or teaching how to be a cuckoo. They just know instinctively how to get back to the warm of Africa when the time comes.

Birdwatch Results

Photo by Nigel Blake
(from the RSPB website)

It was a rather disappointing hour on Sunday morning 9.50 -  10.50. The weather was grey, frosty, slightly misty and windless and I think our usual birds were huddled away trying to keep warm.

The results during the hour were:

Dunnock           2
Great Tit           2
Blackird            2    (a pair)
Woodpigeon     1    (There's usually about 8 sitting in the walnut trees. I think they may have been on the sprouts which I can't see from the kitchen window!)
Robin                2
Blue Tit             2
Magpie              1
Carrion Crow    1

No woodpecker, chaffinches, collared doves or long-tailed tits which we usually expect. Just after the hour a flock of about 8 noisy Jackdaws descended. The numbers are a count of how many birds are seen at the same time.

Birdwatch

The RSPB are holding their annual Big Garden Bird Watch this weekend. All you need to do is spend an hour on Saturday or Sunday looking in your garden and recording what birds you see and send your results in on-line. More here:
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

I'll have a go - although it's sometimes frustrating when regular visiting birds don't turn up to be counted during your hour!  I'll report here on Sunday evening what we see this year.