BTO Garden Bird Watch

A day or so ago my copy of "Bird Table" (the British Trust for Ornithology magazine of the garden bird watch) dropped through the letter box.  It was a special issue to mark 25 years of the survey.  That must make it one of the earliest forms of "Citizen Science".  I was amazed to find there are 250 gardens which have been surveyed for all the 25 years.

So what is the Garden Bird Watch?  Well if you watch the birds in your garden you are basically already doing it!  You watch the birds in your garden in your usual way making a note of the largest number you see using the garden that week.  Birds flying over aren't using it.   The birds must be present together, so a female today and a male tomorrow still only counts as one.  At the end of the week you submit the records.

So the blip, the laptop shows one of the pages of my records, the magazine of cours, bird food and my way of keeping track of sightings.  I run off a simple tally sheet on the computer with the birds we expect to see, any not on the list i write on.   So if on Monday morning I look out and see a robin a mark on the sheet then if I see two on Tuesday two marks under the Tuesday heading.