Garden Birdwatch

We have been sending records to the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) Garden Birdwatch scheme since 2000.  Each week we keep a note of the birds that we see in our garden and record them on a form.  For some of the more common species we keep a check on numbers and for others we just tick 'present'.   Participants send in their records every quarter and these are entered in a national database.  Participants can check their past records with the data presented in a number of formats.  I have been taking a look at our records and we have reported 50 species of birds over the period of 13 years (the all-time Sussex list now stands at 399, for comparison).  Blue tit, Woodpigeon, Blackbird, Robin, Dunnock, Great Tit, Magpie, and House Sparrow in that order of frequency were present on 87% or more of the weeks on which we reported.   Then there is a sharp drop to the next most frequent species which is the Chaffinch, present in just 67% of the weeks we have recorded.  Carrion Crow, Wren, Collared Dove, Long-tailed tit, Great Spotted Woodpecker, Nuthatch. Song Thrush, Coal Tit, Greenfinch and Goldfinch are the next in order of appearance.  There are some birds that are genrally considered to be very common in this part of the world, but rarely visit our garden.  Starling and Jackdaw are two birds that are common in the neighbourhood, but only occasionally call on us.

Blue tit, Blackbird, Robin, Wren, House Sparrow and Mallard have all nested in our garden and we hope to see some of them doing so again this summer (except the Mallard!)