counting coots

In the name of science and Robinstroking, I did the Garden Birdwatch on Saturday and gave it another go on Sunday (validation of statistics etc). The best of it was that a Song Thrush was belting it's song out consistently for an hour, and a Starling was also going for it in a tree (with snatches of Greenfinch and Pied Wagtail in it's vocal arsenal). Just after a Chaffinch dropped in, Saturday's hour was brought to a sharp end by this critter...





... and this one too (this is Lulu - she is fucked-in-the-head from years of low level teasing from recalcitrant children).









So on Sunday morning I went for it again, despite the rain. For half an hour I had nothing but a bedraggled Woodpig and the singing Thrush for company, until the whole area was abandoned because of this...

No it's not the best photo but I never claimed to be any good with a lens... Once this dropped into next door's garden, everything freaked out and it fell silent, leaving me with one set of results which had three more species on it than last year (Dunnock, Feral Pigeon and Magpie).

I shall diligently risk my Chalfont’s by sitting on a cold step for an hour while watching not much in the name of science (kinda) this weekend because it’s the RSPB Garden Birdwatch thingy. Last year I got about a dozen species, and expect no more than that this year – but there is nothing a patch birder likes more than being forced to watch not much in the name of science. I’ll put some bread out, and hope that the Starlings can get down quick enough before the Woodpigs clear it all up. Bring it on!

Like so many urbanites, putting food out for birds just makes the squirrels fatter, and what they leave behind just brings the rats out. The foxes don’t get much of it so they just raid the bins, leaving them open for the Woodpigs to clear up. I cut a coconut in half and hung it from the tree in the garden the other Sunday (as they were going for 57p in a nameless large supermarket) and the squirrels have stolen them. Completely vanished. Bitten through the string and gone. I doubt if the local Tits even got a sniff of them. Utter bastards.

As an aside, last summer I tried to ‘discourage’ the Woodpigs to leave the garden (did I mention that I detest Woodpigeons?) by use of a water pistol. Of course I had not thought this through properly and when they got squirted, they just quizzically looked at the sky, wondered where the rain was coming from and carried on scoffing bread until their bloody gizzards where totally extended. Utter, utter, bastards.

Ok, have a picture of a Cormorant ‘giving it some’ taken this lunchtime by a man that is outsmarted by pigeons.