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Sunday 16 January 2011

Christmas results.....


Hello all. At last I'm back on line. Phew, that was an illness and a half and I only really began to feel like a human being again a couple of days ago. I know a few of you have had flu and infections too over Christmas so you have my sympathies, and hope you are on the mend. Bring on the warm spring days.


A big thank you to those of you who took the time to do a bit of garden watching over the Christmas period. In the end even though I wasn't really with it, I managed 5 species, mainly house sparrow, starling, blue tit, dunnock and magpie. There may have been other species out there but I just didn't fancy sitting in the cold conservatory watching them.


This was all meant to be a bit of fun, but I shall make special mention to ST who managed a fabulous 27 species in his garden. By a long chalk ST is the winner of the competition. Well done.


But the competition was fun and just a way of getting through the dark days of winter, thus here are the equally credible entries in no particular order;


Caroline at Ragged Robin notched up a very credible 19 and also made mention of wrens roosting in old hanging baskets. Given the cold weather it would be interesting to know how many wrens in each basket each night.


Shirl at Shirl's Gardenwatch managed 12 species on Christmas Day and 18 in total, including brambling which is a nice garden tick. Sadly like many she recorded no greenfinches, sadly in a downward population dive. Outside the time frame she also had a reed bunting.


Frank the Early Birder, had a very good species count of 19, including the exotic ring necked parakeet and bucking the trend 12 greenfinches. Hold onto those Frank.


Sian way up in the Orkneys on her Small Island blog had 13 garden birds, but I think we'd all be so excited to include fulmar and hooded crow. As she said she only has one shrubby tree in her garden so not much cover.


Sadly Cindy at Cindy's Snaps sent me her list but I unfortunately never received it. If i get it after posting this I'll amend this post. Thankfully Cindy has now put through her score, a goodly 16, including a black headed gull with a taste for garlic bread. It all happens in Suffolk


It was great to have you posting your results especially given the weather across the UK, it wasn't the best of birding conditions. But thank you.


Finally some of you who left post comments to the original posting but never submitted your bird count also should have mention. I'm not sure if you took part of not. But that doesn't matter, we're all a big friendly blogging community out there so its good to promote each others work, so thank you for your comments to......















A Happy New Year to you all!

7 comments:

  1. Hello Wessex, this is Mildenhall Suffolk with our results (sounds like the Eurovision Song Contest!). I'm sorry my results didn't get through and I thought I was being everso efficient (for once) - maybe I clicked the wrong button (story of my life!!), anyway, here we go ....

    From my garden in Mildenhall, Suffolk, not far from the runway!!

    Black headed gulls (who liked garlic bread, I've never seen them in my garden before - gulls that is not garlic bread)
    Magpie
    Carrion Crow
    Jay
    Black Bird
    Starling
    Collared Dove
    Wood Pigeon
    Blue Tit
    Coal Tit
    Great Tit
    Long Tailed Tit
    Chaffinch
    Green Finch
    Robin
    Dunnock

    And those were the results from Mildenhall ....
    Cindy

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  2. Thanks Cindy, I'll update the posting. With or without garlic bread depends on my mood :-)

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  3. I did sort of watch the birds but like you got the lurgy and lost interest in the world in general! I also had to work over Christmas and New year as usual. However in my garden I saw
    Blackbirds
    Sparrows
    Dunnock
    Blue Tit
    Great Tit
    Coal Tit
    Thrush
    Wood Pigeons
    Robin
    Long tailed Tits

    Not many I know! My best tick was seeing a flock of Waxwings on Christmas day. We went to Church and on the way home saw people staring up at a tree, stopped and there they were, fantastic!
    Glad you are feeling better now.....bring on the spring!

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  4. You are a dear to have posted a link to my blog. I did watch the birds in my garden through Christmas but it was something of a bust as to anything of interest. The following is what congregated around the feeders...

    House Sparrow Brown headed Cowbird
    Starling Tufted Titmouse
    Carolina Chickadee Carolina Wren
    Northern Cardinal White-crowned Sparrow
    White-throated Sparrow
    Song Sparrow

    Considering snow cover and cold I expected more. Not even a Cooper's Hawk to chase them around.

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  5. I should add that I am located in SW Indiana in the Untited States.

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  6. Im glad you are finally feeling a bit better, Andrew. Thanks for organising the competition. Its interesting to see the species seen in gardens in different parts of the oountry and abroad. As far as I can see there is just one wren roosting but I will try and keep watch at dusk and see exactly how many there are.

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  7. Hi Goosey, thanks for the list. The number of birds seen doesn't really matter, it's the collective getting together which is fun. Great you saw the waxwings on Christmas Day I've still not seen any. I hope you're feeling better now. We need more sun and warmth to restore us lurgy sufferer's

    Hi Lisa, great to get your list from Indiana, very exotic species there, I think I'll look some of these up on the internet, very intriguing birds like the Caroline Chickadee and the Northern Cardinal

    Hi Caroline, wrens will have suffered badly in the cold snap we have just experienced, so its good to know your wren has survived. Barn Owls have also taken a tumble sadly.

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