Author: bilboburgler

Big Garden Birdwatch results

We counted the birds at Myers Croft Beck, Craven Street, Bremner Street and the Memorial Garden, all patches of land we have worked on, on 30th-31st Jan, a very cold, rainy weekend.  We didn’t see any birds at Bremner Street.  At Craven Street we saw 2 blue tits, 2 woodpigeons and 3 blackbirds in an hour.  At Myers Croft Beck, near the entrance to the allotments, we saw 9 blackbirds, 3 blue tits, 1 sparrow, 2 magpies, 1 robin, 3 woodpigeons, 1 crow and 1 wren in an hour.  At the Memorial Garden, 5 blackbirds, 1 sparrow and 3 pigeons were spotted.  There are more birds in these little overlooked scraps of land than you might think, particularly blackbirds which seem to be everywhere.

We also counted birds in our gardens, and between us spotted 14 different species, including a pheasant, lots of blackbirds and pigeons, and most of the other common garden birds.

Snowdrops are coming up

The snowdrops that we planted around Otley in September are beginning to flower. We began to see them early in January, and now with any luck they should be showing at all the sites where we planted them. There are definitely snowdrop flowers at Gasworks Corner and Bremner Street, more are appearing all the time. Thank you again to everyone who helped us.

Big Garden Birdwatch 2016

It’s the Big Garden Birdwatch on 30th-31st January.  Organised by the RSPB, the idea is to count the wild birds that land in your garden or a local park for one hour on the 30th or 31st January.  There’s a simple tick-box form to fill in and send off, for further details see the RSPB website.

We are hoping to count birds on some of the sites we’ve worked on or put bird boxes on, such as Bremner Street, Gasworks Corner, Craven Street, Myers Croft Beck, the Memorial Garden, weather permitting.

Christmas Tree Festival 2015

On Monday 7th a few of us got together to sort out the tree decorations we have, and make some more.

 Otley in Bloom decorated a tree in the Parish Church as part of the Christmas Tree Festival.  And then the festival began on Wed 9th Dec and continues until Sat 12th Dec.  For more information see the festival’s website.

Please come and see our tree and the 39 others that will be there – there will be musical performances and a cafe throughout.