RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch 2025

 Friday 24th - Sunday 26th January 2025

During the week that led up to the Big Garden Birdwatch we did some colouring, crafting, and checking out books to remind ourselves of the birds we already knew, and to learn a few new ones. I had done some new posters with more birds on for Bear to check out, and he knew most of them already as bird identification is something we do a lot of anyway as both boys love birdwatching.

After last year's epic failure of a bird count, a big fat zero, and a year of not a lot of bird activity in the garden due to several neighbourhood cats that roam the street, I decided this year that we would go out somewhere were we were more likely to be able to actually count some birds!

The weekend coincided with a family weekend, with both myself and Daddy at home, so we packed up a picnic and headed to Sherwood Pines for an adventure day. We spent the morning walking The Gruffalo Trail, then stopped for a picnic near the cafe. The bench we had chosen had a good view around it, and I was hopeful for birds landing for the boys to count. They had brought their binoculars, and I had printed identification sheets out for them to check the birds off as we saw them, and they had their new clipboards to lean on which was exciting too.

When the first bird landed, I'm not sure who was more excited, me or the boys! Daddy may have received an excited punch to the arm from me while the boys looked at the bird through their binoculars to identify it.

After several more landed, we realised that the family that had picnicked at the bench near us, had obviously left crumbs, as it soon proved to be a popular spot and we had lots land, including some that we couldn't identify as they seemed to be young birds that didn't quite resemble the adult bird they would become. We didn't count the ones we didn't know, as we didn't want to skew the results by recording them wrong, but there were plenty to record that Bear could identify without any help, as well as a couple that we relied on Daddy for.

When our hour was up and we'd eaten all of our picnic we checked our results and had a healthy eleven birds counted, plus the ones we couldn't identify - after last year, I call that a serious win!

A few days later, Bear and I did his journal page, where we cut up the count sheet to include the ones we saw on his page, along with some photos. Bear did the writing for the title this time, and he dictated a short description of what we did.

Overall, a much better outcome this year, and both boys loved taking part. We filled in the survey that had come in our pack from the RSPB and posted the results to be counted in the overall survey this time. Bear was very excited knowing that he had helped look out for the birds!

Did you take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch this year?

What did you see?

Mama Bear x