Birds Eye London

SallyB2
By SallyB2 Last edited 182 months ago
Birds Eye London

2201,bird.jpg If you’ve just remembered you’ve got a garden but need a little bit of a welly boot to revisit it, the RSPB are offering you just the ticket this weekend. It’s the Big Garden Birdwatch, wherein nature loving Londoners do a kind of stock check of chicks, a tally of tits, a round-up of robins…OK - so now we’re just being silly: but you get the idea. They need eagle-eyed volunteers with an hour spare to stand and stare. The annual bird count, now in its 30th year is a national event, and helps the nice bird men to keep track of what’s coming and going in the winged world. All you need to do is to download a form and follow the tips here. It will only take an hour of your time, and you can do it Saturday or Sunday.

If your own garden is too intimidating, then there’s a whole flock of feathered events that you can attend: there’s a guided walk of Rainham Marshes, family fun in Ravenscourt Park, bird-watching at the Well Hall Peasaunce in Eltham, and some (presumably secret) activities at the Secret Garden Wildlife Centre in Greenwich Park.

A few statistics to spur you into action:

  • robins, pigeons and magpies seem to be thriving, but there has been a 50-75% drop in numbers of most garden birds in the last 30 years;
  • the top five remain largely unchanged over that period, featuring starlings, sparrows, blue tits and blackbirds…
  • ..but the finch seems to have vanished.
  • Right - so go polish those binoculars. Just remember on this occasion that a bird in the hand is worth the same in the bush.

    Birdie by Southcoasting via the Londonist flickr pool.

    Last Updated 22 January 2009