For one hour on the weekend of 24-25 January 2015, thousands of people across Scotland will settle down to watch the birds in their gardens or local parks, keeping a count of what they see. It’s all part of the annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, an event which started back in 1979 and has since grown to become one of the biggest, most geographically widespread surveys of its kind.
“It’s been steadily growing in size and popularity,” according to RSPB Species Policy Officer Keith Morton. “Last year, nearly 40,000 people in Scotland took part. It’s fun. A lot of people enjoy feeding and looking at the birds in their garden, but to actually sit down and record what you see is something a little bit different. There’s also a parallel Big School Birdwatch; that’s about education and enthusing primary school children about wildlife, which some of them will never have been terribly conscious of before.”
In scientific terms, Keith accepts that the methodology used by BGBW is relatively simple, but the amount of data received every year nevertheless makes it meaningful and useful. “Most of the birds people see in their gardens are actually doing quite well — things like Blue tits, chaffinches, and Gold finches have very robust populations,” he points out. “But starling and sparrow populations, both of which have undergone quite significant declines, have been reflected in the BGBW data; it provides an extra bit of confirmation to the trend information that’s coming in from other sources.”
Yet it’s not all bad news. One of the most significant findings in recent years has been a significant rise in the numbers of gold finches in Scotland — these colourful garden visitors were the 15th most seen bird just a decade ago; by 2014, they were perching at number seven. It’s not clear why, though recent milder winters and a rise in the number of people putting out the likes of Nyjer seed and sunflower hearts are surely helping these particular birds to thrive.
So how can you get involved? For one thing, you don’t need to even have a garden. “It’s always been called ‘Big Garden Birdwatch’ but we’ve always made it clear that by ‘garden’ we could mean a feeder stuck to your flat, ten floors up, somewhere in Easterhouse. Or you can just sit in your local park. Obviously the Big Schools Birdwatch are usually in the school grounds, because they often have bird feeders. They seem to be great for blackbirds; they’re the most common birds recorded in schools.
“As you’d expect in the current age, the Birdwatch is very much now web-based,” Keith accepts. “You can even use an App and record as you go with a tablet or mobile phone. However, all the ‘old-fashioned’ systems are in there as well, so if you just want to sit down with a pen and paper, and send it in afterwards, that’s still perfectly possible and the information all ends up in the same place.”
For more information on the 2015 Big Garden Birdwatch, go to www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch
Kirsty Griffiths
“I wasn’t really that interested in nature at all when I first moved to Scotland,” says Kirsty Griffiths, who now works as an events and learning officer at the RSPB’s Mersehead reserve in Dumfries. “My partner sort of got me looking out the window and seeing what came to the feeders; that really sparked my interest.”
Now, in addition to completing the survey in her own back garden, Kirsty takes her local Guides unit to a local park and helps run the RSPB Big School Birdwatch — clearly, she’s hooked!
“Even in my own back garden, you notice differences,” Kirsty says. “With the different weather we’re having, year on year, you can see different things coming in.
“As an educational officer, I’ve found it a brilliant tool to get kids to ook at what they can see in their school grounds,” she adds. “I go in and tell them all about the birds — that this is a house sparrow, this is a blue tit, this is a starling, and so on — and shall we have a look for them? The great thing is that they’ll see you in the street a couple of weeks later and be all excited about a blackbird that they saw which is still there.”
Just as important, though, Kirsty feels both the bird watches are helping get kids outside. “Times have changed since I was young — when I was always climbing trees and getting dirty. It’s nice that BGBW is getting them outside and noticing nature.”
Andrew Bielinksi
Andrew Bielinski can’t honestly remember how long he’s been involved with the Big Garden Birdwatch. “On a more regular basis, it’s probably six or seven years, but less regularly for a long time before that,” he says.
Part of the pleasure now is in sharing the experience with his children. “My son’s done it once, my daughter has done it three or four times,” Andrew explains. “I try to get them involved with it, rather than just me sitting there. You can talk about the birds, but there’s also the discipline needed to just sit there and see what’s coming and going.”
This being Scotland, though, Andrew points out that the January weather can cause some upsets. “The last couple of years, the chosen weekends have not been particularly good, so my counts have been pretty poor,” he says. “That’s annoying when, on the weekend before, I’d seen loads of chaffinches and house sparrows! But that’s part of it; BGBW is one hour on one weekend and you just can’t guarantee what the weather’s going to do. I did it one year in my in-laws’ garden in Carlisle — because we happened to be there that weekend — and that was pretty quiet too.
“Generally, we get a lot of chaffinches and house sparrows; they’re the two that make up the bulk of the numbers,” he adds. “It’s other birds which fluctuate; we get influxes of siskin and gold finches, but you can’t guarantee they’ll coincide with that particular BGBW weekend.”
Scotland’s Top Ten Garden Birds, 2014
No change in Top 5 since 2013 survey:
1: House sparrow
2: Chaffinch
3: Starling
4: Blackbird
5: Blue tit
6: Woodpigeon (up one from 7)
7: Goldfinch (up 3 from 10)
8: Great tit (unchanged from 2013)
9: Robin (unchanged from 2013)
10: Coal tit (down from 6)
Full article first published in The Scots Magazine, January 2015.
