The Big Garden Bird Watch 2019

Last weekend saw the annual Big Garden Bird Watch, organised by the RSPB. You spend an hour counting the birds visiting your garden, or other open space - could be a park, or school grounds etc. It's a huge citizen science project and has been running for 40 years, revealing some interesting trends over that time.

The week leading up to the BGBW weekend had been fairly busy for birds in my garden - a constant flow of visitors to the feeders in the cold but calm weather. However, the weekend saw that come to an end! The weather turned windy and the birds hunkered down.

I had planned to try some sketching - I find sketching garden birds tricky at the best of times, as they tend to be fast moving, but I'd hoped that having a good number of them about would help me get some poses down on paper. In the event the birds tended to pop up for just a few seconds before vanishing, and they tended to arrive all at once then disappear again, so I found the whole thing really difficult - need more practice!

Nevertheless, I ended up with a reasonable list even though I was watching an empty garden for most of the hour!

 

 

 

My final list was: 6 long-tailed tits, 3 blackbirds, 2 chaffinches, 1 great tit, 2 blue tits, 1 robin, 1 dunnock, 1 fieldfare, 5 house sparrows, 1 woodpigeon and 1 coal tit. No sign of the regular starlings, collared doves or stock doves!

Cold and crisp!

We've had a few days of rather cold weather, alongside beautifully clear blues skies. Perfect for walking (or running!), and for jotting down sightings in the nature journal (which I did when I got back as I'd picked up the wrong sketchbook, oops!).

The start of the walk...

 ...and at the turnaround point at the bottom of the bridleway.

Plenty to see along the way. The buzzard was perched in its usual tree, and there were fieldfares hopping around on the cricket field. Past the stables and along the bridleway I found a heap of chicken manure which had been commandeered by three pied wagtails, who were chasing insects (and each other) pretty much non-stop. Spotted another perched buzzard; this one seemed very pale, breast feathers gleaming in the sunshine, but it was a bit too far off to get a really good look, even with binoculars.

Further down the track there were lots of yellowhammers in the hedgerow, along with chaffinches and a couple of reed buntings. The stand of large trees near the end of the bridleway had a good complement of rooks flying and settling up top.

About turn and a wander homewards to thaw out a bit!

Out for a run

I have a favourite running route which takes me along a bridleway, through a village and back home across the fields, and Tuesday this week was a perfect day for  run - chilly but sunny, with the muddy ground sticky but not slippery.

I always enjoy these runs - fresh air and lots to see, and changes to note as the year rolls on. The hedgerow along the bridleway seemed to be full of fieldfares today. They flew off ahead of me, with their distinctive soft 'chack chack' call. There doesn't seem to be a lot of hedgerow bounty left - only rosehips and ivy berries. Most of the hawthorn and blackthorn fruit has already been eaten. Over in the fields to the east was a huge flock of pigeons, put up to flight by me I guess. There must have been a couple of hundred. I'm sure the farmer would be delighted...

Near the start of my run, as I headed off down the bridleway, I spotted a bit of a commotion down the track to the west - a buzzard being harassed by three crows. By the time I had looped back round towards home, three crows (presumably the same ones!) were sitting happily in a field, with no sign of the buzzard. Job done.

Although the farmland just here is arable and fairly intensive there is still wildlife to spot, even at lunchtime. A skylark was flying and singing over one of the fields, and there's almost always a small flock of finches/buntings somewhere along the way. I've seen hares here too.

Back in my village, nearing home, I finished with a loop on the farm track around the cricket pitch. There were lots of goldfinches in the hedgerow; I'd hoped to spot some linnets too, but no luck today.

An enjoyable jog all in all -  beats the treadmill in the gym any day!

In the log pile...

Here's a couple of new nature journal pages for the new year! My partner was chopping logs for the fire and unearthed one from the bottom of the pile. It has probably been sat in the same place for a couple of years, and had started to mulch down nicely.

The bark was only loosely associated with the rest of the log and came away to reveal a lovely little ecosystem of fungi and invertebrates, some of which I managed to get onto paper!

The tiny tiny spiders are both Linyphiidae species - there are around 280 different species in the UK and it's our largest spider family. These ones were both around 2mm in body length but could scurry away impressively quickly!

The fungi were growing from the mulch at the base of the log. The bigger ones are Glistening inkcaps (Coprinellus micaceus). They look like they've been dusted with sugar - this is the remains of the veil that they have when they first emerge. The tiny fungi on the inside of the bark piece are a Mycena species; I asked for help with an ID for these from the facebook British and Irish Fungi group, and it seems they may be M. archangeliana or perhaps M. pseudocoeticola. 

Amazing what you can find in your back garden - there's always something of interest!