Caught the survey bug, or a bug to survey?
The end of January saw the return of the Big Garden Birdwatch which attracts around half a million regular participants. When you consider this is the 41st year it has run that adds up to a very substantial amount data1RSPB – How to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch.
The survey was originally intended to be a one-off event and only for children but the number of responses received led to it becoming a regular event. Due to its phenomenal success, in 2001 the RSPB finally invited adults to join in the fun, and now it has clocked up a massive 9 million survey hours and 137 million birds counted2RSPB – Celebrating the world’s largest wildlife survey.
This year I ended up doing two surveys and they were both considerably different experiences. The original plan for the day had been for my survey buddy Beka to come over in the morning to help survey the car park behind my flat and then for us to go on a mindfulness walk in the afternoon (this is something I will blog about on another day!). Unfortunately Beka had an assignment due and could only manage one of these events, and as we had paid for the mindfulness walk she opted for that one.
So for my first survey I got myself a pot of tea and some biscuits, pulled the bed over to the window, piled up the pillows and sat in my pyjamas, wrapped in the duvet with the sun streaming through the window to do my count. The setting was perfect! The birds, however, decided not to be so amenable…
It wasn’t that most of the birds decided not to show up for my survey; that would have been disappointing, but a null result is still valuable information for those analysing the data. The thing that was frustrating was that all the birds had decided to congregate on a line of trees that was exactly only just too far away for me to be able to identify them. I managed to count about 14 woodpigeons; they were big enough to see. I could also see there were at least 12 song birds because every now and then something would disturb them. They would take off, fly around for a bit as a group of silhouettes in the distance, and then settle back down disappearing once again amongst the branches.. I think that next year I might try and find a spot from which I can survey just those three trees!
The reason for the second survey was that the mindfulness walk ended up being cancelled. Beka was still keen to get out of the house and was disappointed not to have made the earlier bird watch so we decided to go to the reserve where the walk would have been and do a survey there instead. This time the experience was quite the reverse! Instead of being cosy inside, in the sunshine, we ended up huddled outside in the rain clasping a thermos of tea. it decided to rain. The birds clearly had more appreciation of this additional effort though and we managed to spot woodpigeons, collared doves, long tailed tits, morehens, mallards, a goldfinch, a blackbird and even a heron.
I mentioned in my last post that in the lead up to this year’s bird watch I did a session at work on how to identify your garden birds. My highlight of this year’s survey was that one of my colleagues came to me after the weekend and said that because of my talk she was able to identify her first chaffinch. It’s really nice to have the opportunity to share my love of nature and see someone else enjoying it as a result. Now I just hope I can achieve that on a larger scale through my blog!
If you took part in the Big Garden Birdwatch and have caught the survey bug you don’t need to wait until next year for the next one. There are plenty of surveys and recording schemes you can get involved with over the rest of the year. These range from ones needing little species identification experience to ones needing a lot, and from ones needing very little commitment to ones needing a lot. I have added a surveys and sightings page to my site that provides details of some of these as well as links to where you can find a lot more information. There are surveys to suit every need so happy surveying!
