Big Garden Birdwatch – Otley in Bloom

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.

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.