The RSPB's big garden bird watch took place last weekend. Its aim is to get people to record birds seen in their garden over a one hour period. This gives a snapshot of bird populations in each region. Last year 280,000 gardens were surveyed.
The survey helps the RSPB spot problems in populations and more importantly is often the first step to help a species recover. The plight of the sparrow was highlighted in this way. House sparrows are still our most common garden bird and yet their numbers have halved in the last 30 years.
While it is important to list and record the birds that we see, I like to study the birds in my garden in depth. I enjoy getting to know their habits and even the characters of individual birds, which in turn helps me to produce my paintings.
Some birds are sociable such as the tree sparrow. Despite the odd fight over a nest box or a scuffle under the hedge, you can see that they really enjoy each other's company. These are the most common bird in my garden, but, surprisingly, they aren't on the RSPB Big Garden recording sheet.
One bird that is on the sheet, however, is the robin, the nation's favourite garden bird. This popular bird is highly territorial and so you're only likely to see one pair in your average sized garden. Occasionally another robin may encroach on a pair's territory and will be given short shrift by the locals.
One year my resident robin found a competitor which he could not frighten away. It was actually its own reflection in my wife's car window. He would fly at his reflection time and time again. And when he could stand it no more he would rest on the window sill of the car angrily watching his competitor as it matched his every move. Of course, this annoyed him all the more.
Sometimes he would spot his reflection in the wing mirror and he would go for that. The poor thing just didn't know which way to turn. In fact for several days the only rest the poor robin got was if my wife went out in the car!
Worried that he was now getting himself too distressed, we moved the car off our drive and into the adjacent gallery car park. But he wanted to find the car and his imaginary competition and before long the battle resumed.
Interestingly, the robin completely ignored my car. My wife's was obviously much cleaner and gave a better reflection!
It was only when we hid the car around the back of the gallery that he lost interest.
Spring was round the corner and, possibly, his mind was on other things. He still patrolled the garden though, and often kept me company as I dug over the vegetable patch. He used to use my mum's old tin kettle, in which I kept garden labels, as a lookout post for worms.
This brought back memories of living in Givendale with my parents as a child and I remembered how the robins used the same kettle to nest in.
So I put the kettle up in a quiet corner of the garden. It had only been up for a few days before I saw it being investigated by the robins.
Sure enough they nested in it and went on to raise five chicks. It just goes to show that nest boxes don't need to be expensive!
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Wildlife Diary -
