Recent event spotlight: Big Garden Birdwatch Year 2

Ellen, Energy Garden’s Biodiversity Lead, here to tell you about our second year participating in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch.

While we are in the midst of a bit of a winter wind down, there is one event that gets Energy Garden volunteers out to brave the January chill—the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch!  This was our second year participating in the UK’s largest community science event. So far, almost 8 million birds have been counted which will add to the 46 years of data the RSPB has been collecting from this event. This data can be used to track bird population trends and inform conservation action.  

A volunteer using binoculars to observe birds at Brondesbury Park Station. 

With lots of enthusiasm, we followed the RSPB’s protocol and recorded what bird species landed at Brondesbury Park, the World Peace Garden (adjacent to our Hampstead Heath Garden) and Bush Hill Park.  We were treated to beautiful weather and birds. There was overlap in our observations, with common species like robins (Erithacus rubecula), blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus), magpies (Pica pica), and of course wood pigeons (Columba palumbus) were spotted in all the gardens.  Rarer were ring-necked parakeets (Psittacula krameri), great tits (Parus major), a dunnock (Prunella modularis), feral pigeons (Columba livia domestica), a starling (Sturnus vulgaris), a wren (Troglodytes troglodytes), a coal tit (Periparus ater), and a blackbird (Turdus merula). In total, we saw 40 individual birds!  

The guides and clipboards used to complete the surveys.

The Energy Garden team will use this information to better cater to the birds using our gardens.  Last year, we added new bird boxes at gardens like Hatton Cross specifically designed for the species that we have noticed in that area.  We will be doing the same this year, look out for events on our website! 

The robin we observed in the World Peace Garden.

See you in the gardens soon!  

— Ellen