RSPB Big Garden Watch this weekend

I thought I would remind everyone this weekend is RSPB Big GardenWatch

http://promotethanet.blogspot.ie/2015/01/something-for-weekend.html

Don

Ah thanks, I usually do it, but last year got a grand total of two starlings!

This year, I’ve got the fantastic innovation of a birdfeeder, which took me six months to get round to assembling, because, when I took it out of the packaging, the instructions began: “First drive the base section 14 inches into the ground”.

It’s heavy clay here, so a middle-aged woman with MS trying to drive a spike 14 inches into the ground was no mean feat. I struggled with 14mm!

I eventually did it over the course of several days, bashing it for about ten minutes at a time (moves about one inch), before having to come in and have a lie down.

When I’d finished, it was very skew-wiff and a bit rickety (not entirely my fault - it’s made of three telescopic poles, which only overlap at the joints by about an inch, and are held by a single self-tapping screw).

But to my amazement, it has survived the first severe gales of the season - albeit listing ever more precariously.

I don’t think it will survive a season, but while it lasts, I do have a better variety of garden birds than I’ve had previously, so I will hope for better results this year.

I still can’t get any finches - the finch food remains untouched. I’ve got bluetits, blackbirds and robins, as well as a few species I’m not so keen to encourage: crows, magpies, starlings and pigeons.

Tina

Tina you deserve a medal. My wife does it all, my wheelchair won’t make the seven steps down into our garden

I must say we sunflowers hearts expensive but no mess. The ring neck parakeets demolish a feeder full most days but we have some squirrel proof feeders for the birds that the parakeet scare off.

I must say some years doing the watch I have been disappointed but hey ho.

Good watching. DON