And so ends the voting of the Liverpool watch - RSPB Liverpool's BGBW

Thanks to all who sent in their recordings 

A total of 21 gardens and 1 park were scrutinised.

SPECIES	NO’ OF GARDENS SEEN IN	TOTAL NO’S OF  SPECIES SEEN	RANKING By no’s seen	RANKING By gardens found
BLACKBIRD	20	50	1 J	3
MISTLE THRUSH	1	1	15 J	20 J
WREN	7	7	9	15 J
BLUE TIT	20	42	1 J	4
GREAT TIT	17	38	2	5
COAL TIT	6	7	10 J	15 J
LONG TAILED TIT	3	5	13 J	15
ROBIN	16	22	3	10
BLACKCAP	3	3	13 J	18
STARLING	8	33	8 J	7
DUNNOCK	12	17	5	12
HOUSE SPARROW	8	52	8 J	2
FERAL PIGEON	6	61	10 J	1
WOODPIGEON	14	26	4	8
COLLARED DOVE	7	8	9	14
GOLDFINCH	9	35	7	6
CHAFFINCH	6	16	10	13
CHIFFCHAFF	1	1	15 J	20 J
JAY	5	7	11	15 J
JACKDAW	4	18	12 J	11
MAGPIE	11	25	6	9
CROW	3	6	13 J	16
RING NECKED PARAKEET	1	4	15 J	17 J
NUTHATCH	1	1	15 J	20 J
GT SPOTTED WOODPECKER	2	4	14 J	17 J
KESTREL	1	1	15 J	20 J
PIED WAGTAIL	1	1	15 J	20 J
GREY WAGTAIL	1	1	15 J	20 J
LESSER BLACK BK GULL	2	2	14 J	19
BLACK HEADED  GULL	1	1	15 J	20 J
HERRING GULL	1	1	15 J	20 J
GREY SQUIRREL	3	4
CATS	2	2
MONTY ADELIE PENGUIN	1	1

Once again the curse of the bird watch would appear to have fallen,  in that the majority of our watchers reported  -

‘Sadly it was one of the quietest days in the garden for a while’,   ‘  the birds were mostly staying away from my garden too’ ,  ‘ they all decided to stay away despite all the lovely food’ ,  ‘Mine was pretty pathetic,’  ‘ Where did all our birds go?’ ‘ Did they know about the Big Garden Bird watch and went on a go-slow?’

And for one particular unlucky individual ,

Poplar demise - K Appleton

Settling down in a comfy chair, plate of hot buttered toast and a nice steaming cuppa, binoculars count sheet and pen ready for the hour  -Then Calamity, a buzzsaw noise from next door’s garden,  here was  a team of tree surgeons  taking down two one hundred ft  Populars. Oh no. If I was a bird I would vacate the area, so for mitigating circumstances there was no point in waiting around!  Poor Keith. 

Watch out  - K Appleton

(On a plus point he did share with me this photo he took of a Giant Gull at Crosby!)

To be fair, there were a few positives,  ‘ delighted to see that 'my' woodpecker turned up’, ‘ I had a lucky day’. ‘ finally, on the stroke of the hour, the blackcap!’, ‘The lady at the back encourages the gulls by putting out bread for them and the jackdaws like it too - hence the large numbers.Happy birding!’

Comparing our mini watch to last years, we had more visiting blackcaps, no winter thrushes, parakeets have crept in  and Jays and Jackdaws have arrived big time- something I've noticed myself in the last couple of year here in west derby and yes they were missing when I did my count!.

All differences I guess could be down to weather and new recorders/their garden locations.

http://liverpoolrspb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/a-battered-big-garden-birdwatch.html

Remember in a world bereft of birds even a magpie would be welcome!

For those of you who have enjoyed taking part in the big garden birdwatch and would like to record more, please consider joining the BTO garden birdwatch , this will involve you recording your birds every week and uploading them to the BTO. The count includes other nature sightings such as insects & mammals and also records the type of food you put out, more recently they have included your sightings of diseased & dead specimens.

 http://www.bto.org/volunteer-surveys/gbw

Showy Snow Buntings and a Scoter story

Crosby beach

Missed out on the high tide day trip to Heswall  and consequently the red throated diver, but managed a late afternoon trip to a stormy Crosby beach with hubby who thought climbing dunes would be good exercise, that idea didn’t last long!  Dipped on the snow bunting that’s supposed to be about.  

Linnets

But caught up with a large ‘parcel’  don’t know where that collective comes from! of Linnets  up to 30 flighty ones, lovely to see.

Sunday saw me chomping at the bit  to follow up another snow bunting lead from twitter.  Once again non birder hubby dragged out with the promise of a stroll from the kings parade to leasowe lighthouse and back.

Coastguard hovercraft

The beach ws busy the local coasguards when on exercises, a hovercraft was out at tthe water edge- just as well as the liverpool echo later  reported ' A family were rescued by the RNLI Hovercraft  after they were nearly cut off by the rising tide. Coastguards stopped a training session carry out a real life rescue at New brighton yesterday.Two men and two young girls had walked out to a sandbank on the beach at around 11.30am and became stuck.' 

Snow Buntingon

Ecstatic, the buntings were exactly where Ron told me, mooching about the flotsam of the strandline  2 out of reported 3. Great little birds to watch. Sprinkled some bird seed in area, may help to keep them about for other birders.

Snow buntings on strandline

Mission completed now for the stroll. Pied wagtails flitted around the breakwater but am unexpected encounter left me surprised, pleased as I hadn’t seen one in the wild close up and little sad, because  this was  female scoter, sitting on the shore close to the sea, I’m more used to  viewing these sea duck s through a telescope way out to sea.

Female scoter

Female Scoter

She was preening her back end feathers, which looked a little scruffy some unknown substance spoiling her plumage.   She seemed content to sit however she didn’t account for a curious boy determined to get  a mobile phone pic, she flew off down towards meols/hoylake along the waters edge. (which is sort of a positive sign?) I’d like to think she’s ok.

On the return leg  a turnstone and  a couple of sanderling treated us to a reasonably close view, again on  the waters edge.

Turnstone

Sanderling

Happy days.

Quick vids:  view small

It's definitely brightening up !

Welcoming bench

Hi All,

Another brisk cold day out on the banks of the Dee at Parkgate in readiness for the second 10.1 meter high tide. Saying that, the tide was pushed in further today helped by a stronger wind and came right up to the golf coarse footpath wall.

SE Owl

There were more birds to see today and actually saw three pairs of Short Eared Owls flying around ... the first one had been spotted around 11 o'clock going to ground and stayed there for two hours watching me, watching him .... then the rising water pushed him off the tuft of grass that he was hiding next to, then to join the others.

Merlin

A Merlin appeared on a post and stayed there surveying the area before being evicted by a crow ...

Kes

Kestrel

 

A kestrel joined the watchers in a near by bush alongside the footpath and vantage point over the marsh and gave us all a nice under wing display before darting off across the marsh looking for scrambling voles etc.

BH gull and unfortuante

It was quite noticeable that the gulls were picking up more voles than the birds of prey.

I didn't see any Water Rails this time at all and only one Hen Harrier was spotted east of the swimming pool car park .

Soggy Hare doggy paddle

Just as i was leaving I spotted a Hare making its way across the flooded marsh ... kind of a doggie paddle really ... towards the footpath wall but on reaching it, obviously couldn't jump or climb it as it was far too high. So just had to follow the wall along its base until it reached a lower section then to escape the icy cold bath for the more friendlier green fields of the golf course.

I was glad to get back to my car even though I had a spectacular day and to get out of that biting cold wind and more so to get the car heater working at full blast to get my blood flowing and feeling back into my fingers again ...

 

The watcher

                                      Cheers Neil .............

All images Neil prendergast