On the weekend of January 30-31 the Royal Society for the protection of Birds (RSPB) will be holding its annual Big Garden Birdwatch. The birdwatch, which was originally aimed at children, started in 1979 and last year over half a million people took part.
The idea is to spend an hour watching and counting the breeds of birds that come to your garden. You can request a pack from the RSPB website, . This explains what you need to do on the day.
One of the most important things to do is put out food for the birds in your gardens. A lot of you will already have bird feeders, if not, the pack explains what you need to do. The pack identifies the more common birds, but on the RSPB website you can identify rarer breeds.
You can download a pack for free. Then if you have a spare hour over the weekend you can count who appears in your garden. You can enter the counts of what you have spotted. Good luck, I would welcome your feedback.
Photo: Ray Prewer