It's back! #30DaysWild - A whole month of doing cool wild stuff which I am super excited about it. In case you don't know what it is, for the second year running the Wildlife Trust have launched a campaign where they encourage people to do something 'wild' every day throughout the month of June. This is my second year to do it, I loved it so much last year I didn't want it to end and continued to carry on writing about my adventures in my main blog (www.sands-walks.blogspot.co.uk).
What to do for my first day? Well, unfortunately I had to work today and didn't get home until after six so I thought I would keep it 'very' local and for one hour I sat quietly and watched what birds come into the garden at evening...
*Today's random act of wildness - A evening garden birdwatch*
Well first off I would like you to meet 'Wildling the Fox' he will be my little mascot throughout the 30 days...cute isn't he and proudly wearing my #30DaysWild badge :)
Apart from fatballs, peanuts and coconut shells the birds love this concoction of mealworm and suet pellets. At precisely 6.30pm I put it out for them...
...within seconds we get our first visitor - a feral pigeon.
Next up the sparrows, mostly males tonight.
Then the noisy ones...the starlings
It all starts kicking off on the feeder between the starlings and the pigeons "he's behind you!"
A face off over the suet coconut!
It's not long before the pigeons give up and move along leaving the starlings victorious of the feeder!
It's just past 7pm and already our list looks impressive!
Next visitor was a magpie...
...then more starlings with a few juveniles
Finally we finish our hour with a few jackdaws (the other is just off camera)
Phew! I thought it would be quiet this time of the night, but great to see so much activity in the garden and what a great way to kick off #30DaysWild with launching it with our regular feathered friends :)
On January 30th & 31st it was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch - where the whole nation is encouraged to spend one hour in the garden (or local park) to identify and count the different birds that enter the garden.
On Saturday 30th January we took part in my boyfriend's house in Swansea. The weather was surprisingly calm and partial sunny. We feed the birds all the time and we topped up with mealworm, fatballs, suet filled coconut shells and suet pellets. We got our identifying sheet ready, got a cuppa and started our watch...
We started at 10:50am and within seconds we saw a jackdaw, followed by a robin. By 10:55am some common pigeons gatecrashed and were then chased off by a pair of magpies. At 11:03am three starlings showed up and one lonely male sparrow.
Throughout the hour we saw one or two jackdaws, starlings, sparrow, robin, common pigeons and magpies back and foe the feeders. Then all of a sudden the starlings went from three to twelve!
Check out some of the photos from our birdwatch...
Our regular robin red breast
Male starling enjoying the suet coconuts
Common pigeon gatecrashing the party
Starlings in the tree
Male sparrow enjoying the fat balls
Check out a video clip of some of the starlings that visited us :)
One for sorrow, two for JOY!
Starling
Jackdaw and pigeon arguing over food
Robin debating whether to eat suet pellets or mealworm
Jackdaw
Magpie stuffing it's face
Magpie in the tree
So we had a very successful hour of birdwatching and here are our results:
