Big Garden Birdwatch

These are a couple of the stars!

I haven’t done this for a year or two as we are often in NE Somerset on the weekend ahead of Grace’s birthday but this year we are going for the birthday itself.

I was awake early but decided it was too dark to start the Birdwatch then so had my Saturday indulgence of a bath!
Then I gathered my breakfast and set myself up in the conservatory overlooking the feeders in the back garden. There was a good 10 minutes with nothing! I could hear birds so waited.

I would say we got our usual selection nothing surprising, except there were three Collared Doves instead of the usual two. Lots of tooing a froing from tree to ground to roof to next doors washing post. Think there must be a bit of courting going on! I saw just the two of them in the tree later, much more usual.
 When I submitted my results I was a bit disappointed that our number was a bit below average but to compensate for that we had 6 squabbling Goldfinches which was well above the average of 1 and three Siskns. Again above average as they don’t feature at all on average and weren’t on the list. So here are the stars themselves. 
Also disappointing was that our region, West Yorkshire, was running second to Lancashire in the total returns. The number was down in last year so me returning to the fold obviously wasn’t enough. I hope that changes  as the weekend progresses. 

Some of the others seen in the collage include the three Siskins at the feeders at once and a couple of the Goldfinches. These little birds are so messy the  pigeons, blackbirds and thrush rely on what they drop on the ground 

The sun came out as the morning progressed and it was quite Spring like, so much so that I was moved to do some gardening only needing to wear a gilet not a coat.
Filled a bag with dead ‘stuff’ that had overwintered, mainly Japanese Anemones, Montbretia and Sedums. The Sedums heads do look nice through the winter but time to let the new growth come through. There were already quite a number of buttercups coming up! 
I’d filled the bag so decided not to overdo it and called it a day. Another bout of enthusiasm and warm weather will be needed for the back garden.