Great Garden Birdwatch 2012

I just managed to complete this year's RSPB birdwatch after getting back from holiday. It is a great discipline because it forces you to pay attention for a whole hour and having binos at the ready you get to spot birds you would otherwise miss. There was a increase to 14 species from only 10 last year and that was without either mallards or moorhens who are round about the moat most days at this time of year but not during the hour of birdwatch. The theme was probably corvids as there were significant numbers of jackdaws and rooks around and of course the usual pair of crows. Other species seen were blackbirds, wren, robin, a selection of tits (great, blue, long-tailed and coal), starling, wood pigeon, house sparrow and goldfinch. Surprising ommissions apart from the water birds were chaffinch, magpie, collared dove and stock dove. Not so surprising was the lack of greenfinches which seem rare these days.