Babes do Birds

 Babes BigGardenWatch

29th to 31st January 2021

What am I doing here? Here's the clue:

Tweeting you treats.  I repeat. Tweeting you treats.

We agreed that we needed an additional January blog so three challenges were set:  Join in with the RSPB BigGardenWatch plus create a Babe list of birds which do not show up, but are regular visitors or flyovers. Also, the hardest task of all, to send up to two recognisable bird photos. One or two (maybe more!) of these have been remarkably cleaned up, such is the wonder of modern technology.😉

As usual the weather did a down-turn for the RSPB BGW, and many of us were left with a much smaller count than usual; there are always exceptions, of course. 

Even this one decided food was better elsewhere for some of us!

Most of us looked out of our garden window for the bird garden count; but there was one exception and as the RSPB allow for a local area, therefore, so do we.

Here is the RSPB bird count which follows the strict rules of  the highest number of birds seen at any one time within the hour. 

Female blackbird enjoying her space.

Some very interesting results!  The blackbird was the only bird seen by everyone. Two of you saw nine  in your garden all at the same time which was very impressive.  Did you know that a collective name of a blackbird is a 'Merle'?

Male blackbird not entirely sure about the snow.

  Whilst the house sparrow comes in 2nd, a third of these were seen by one person.

House sparrow pretending to be a hedge sparrow; definitely not a tree sparrow

And, the blue tit came in third place, half of which were seen by one person.

Through the window.

Enjoying the sun

If memory serves me correctly, the goldfinch were very much down on numbers from last year.  A disappointment, especially as there were so many about in the summer. 

Here's looking at you, looking at me.

Some birds were seen both out and about and in the garden

Generosity with food helps, in some cases!  Lovely pair of bullfinch. 

There were quite a few birds which showed up in some gardens, but not in others.  To keep it simple, I have only included birds below which were either not seen by anyone on the day or were seen flying over at some point in January. 

 

A flyover by one resting house crow. What a 'carrion'!

Popping in for a dip anytime soon. If you have a brook (or stream, river, torrent, flood) 

at the end of your garden!

And, if you look up, you might just see.

Grey heron in a tree.

or even a Great White Egret on a roof! 

Out and about...

Mallards going for the sepia look... hmm.. 'in eclipse' or are these hybrids? 

Someone couldn't resist the 'ahhh, cute' photo, even if they are Canada geese!

Well done to everyone, but in particular to Maggie who has the highest variety and count from her very well-stocked garden, which I think is secretly Wirksworth's Bird Reserve. Take-away coffees at the back door coming soon from...

Through the 'Nut-hatch'? 

Although, Helen M came in a close 2nd with her Stanley Common walk too. It was a frustrating time for many of us, but between us, we have some really lovely results.  

I'm going to leave you with a bird frequently mentioned on Winter Watch this year, so I just had to check out my stock (one more time!) and share this beauty with you. Only cos 'Eider' hope we will see each other very soon.