And the winner is...

The results are in for the Big Garden Birdwatch in our garden this morning.  Here we have the winner and the runner-up.  The plucky little house sparrow takes the prize with a maximum count of 15 in the hour, while the big bruiser starlings managed 12 (while eating considerably more of the prize).  The starlings are so busy keeping an eye on each other, the sparrows can slip in and get a few beakfuls before being noticed.

There were 11 species in total.  The others were blackbird (3), greenfinch (2), jackdaw (3), wood pigeon (1), dunnock (2), song thrush (1), goldfinch (1), blue tit (2).  

This is the first time I've not recorded a chaffinch in the count, and in fact I've not seen one in the garden all year.  It's a bird, along with the greenfinch, which is declining as a garden species.  It was disappointing not to see great tits and coal tits, they have both been in the garden in the last few days.  The collared dove was once a regular too, they are still in the neighbourhood, but for whatever reason I hardly ever see them in our garden.  One surprise was seeing just one goldfinch, if a flock of goldfinches is called a Charm, is a single one a Charmless?

One year I had twenty species of birds in the hour, but that was when the garden was a miniature arboretum, considerably over-planted with very large trees.  We had to thin out the bigger ones, and now we no longer attract birds like great spotted woodpeckers and nuthatches (which are present at the woodland edge 100 metres or so away).

Apart from Gus walks,  I haven't been far today.  The delicate back was even more delicate after a night's sleep, so until now I've spent the whole day standing up.  It usually takes a couple of days to settle down, and I probably won't spend a lot of time looking at journals this evening.