Big Garden Birdwatch is the world’s largest garden wildlife citizen science project, now in its 44th year. It’s an important part of what the RSPB do to connect people to nature and gives an insight into how wildlife is faring. That’s more critical now, than ever as we need to understand how our actions are impacting on British wildlife.
In 2022 nearly 700,000 people took part, counting over 11 million birds. It is hoped that even more take part this year and I am always delighted to support this project and contribute both with my live cameras and by chatting to the team. Over the weekend, they delivered a fantastic day of live cameras from all over the country, as well as interviews with many experts and enthusiasts.
You can catch up with these on their YouTube Channel and I have attached them at the bottom of this post. If you would like to see my interview, it is at about 4hrs 40... just drag to that point!
Birds have been a life-long love and I have fed and watched them for as long as I can remember! I had a bird table in my garden as a child, growing up in SE London and my diaries are full of what I saw there! .... some things never change!
My plethora of live cameras mean that I just about watch birds ALL the time! I can see them all from my desk and access them all remotely on my phone. I could actually do the bird count without watching the garden as I could just about predict what I would see.
I did my count around midday, through watching both out the window and via my cameras. In this way, I can watch the whole of the garden. I recorded 17 species in my hour: Great tit, blue tit, coal tit, long-tailed tit, greenfinch, goldfinch, chaffinch, house sparrow, blackbird, nuthatch, great-spotted woodpecker, wood pigeon, stock dove, jackdaw, dunnock, robin and magpie. I then submitted the results to the RSPB.
I have put together a few clips, showing some of the action on my cameras today. I never tire of watching the birds and this love is forming a big part of a project I have been working on for over a year now.... I hope to get it off the ground sometime in 2023, so watch this space!
Don't forget to have water out for the birds too. This little bird bath is pretty popular and today there have been some lovely interactions between the different species. I have lifted a couple of the nicest moments....
Here are the videos from the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch Live. The cameras I provided were the apples on the hedgerow, my little hedgerow feeder outside my office, my tawny cam and the camera I set up for Tim Stenton at Hillock Head on the Black Isle in Scotland. All of these and many more are available to watch 24-7 on my website.
My interview is at about 4.40 on the Sunday footage
So, it's over for another year! Lots of exciting things happeneing this year on the wildlife front for me.... and on a personal front, as I am to become a gran in about 5 weeks time..... WildlifeGran... there's a series of books there I think....... #WatchThisSpace
