31 January 2019
This weekend the RSPB encouraged everyone to make a note of the birds that they saw in their gardens.
Although I had been really looking forward to the day, I had forgotten about it until it was mentioned on Guy Garveys finest hour show at lunchtime on radio 6 music. This sparked me into action and I quickly pulled out a paper and pen and set the stopwatch for 1 hour.
Living next door to The Secret Campsite meant I could start lining up the birds I was expecting to see. All I had to do was mark down how many of each species I saw at any one time.
The list is encouraging if you are a goldfinch fan, but hopeless for people who love owls.
Great Tit 5
House sparrow 2
Dunnck 2
Blue Tit 4
Robin 1
Blackbrd 1
Song Thrush 1
Nuthatch 1
Coal Tit 1
Starling 1
Crow 2
Greater Spotted Woodpecker 1
Goldfinch 8
Buzzard 1
Rook 1
Lots of birds make use of the varied habitats that we have created at the campsite and Sussex is a heavily wooded county. I was hoping to see some of the other species that are common around the campsite. These include long tailed tits, green woodpeckers, jackdaws, a raven, and whitethroats. But we were please to see the Buzzard who appeared overhead half way through the hour. Events like this are great fun to carry out, however if, like me, you arent particularly expert it’s likely that lots of birds get missed or wrongly identified.
No pheasants ventured into the garden during the hour but when i walked back over to the campsite there were about 10 who had obviously sought sancturay from the shoot in the woods next door.
Who says birds arent clever?
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