RSPB big garden survey 2025

I have signed up for this! 24-26 January.
Today, I have been practising, watching a pair of Bullfinches on the fruit trees!
Plus a good number of great tits and small brown birds!
A pigeon has been perched, like Jabba the Hutt, hoping it could reach the feeders. It failed!
No sign of the Nuthatches.

 

Anybody else notice that all the birds go into hiding for the chosen hour? You can have 25 bluetits the day before and the day after, but for the time you choose to count them they all move out.

 

I confidently expect I'll see the traditional half dozen seagulls, two pigeons and in a good year a brace of magpie.

 

No we don't do it anymore as too much personal information seems to be required on line.

 

If I think personal data is irrelevant I often change gender, race, education level etc from year to year.

 

I don't get what my age, gender etc has to do with how many birds I spot in an hour.

I did it for a few years and then suddenly I was getting a lot of bumpth in the post from the RSPB about giving them money etc.

 

Yes! Just like the butterflies do when I’m counting them a well.

Maybe we should have a big weed count - then they might disappear too

 

I'm sure when I did the survey last year it said I could not have an "account" - my results just went to them and I couldn't look at them afterwards.

Is this the survey where you measure your garden size in tennis courts?

I tend to extend my sightings to just beyond my back fence as that's where all the action is - buzzards etc. They do sometimes land in the garden, but not in the one hour slot.

 

We have a reasonable variety of birds visiting, but they're sporadic and come at various times throughout the day. So my results never really reflect what we actually get in the garden.

 

Like when they say something is the equivalent of a football pitch. I’ve never been within half a mile of a football pitch and the last time I was on a tennis court was in 1963.

 

Yes! I did it once with my Mum when she was alive and stuck upstairs in bed. She had lots of trees and shrubs and a feeder and we regularly saw all sorts of birds but on the day got a woodpigeon and two magpies.

 

I won't be doing it, I've got ornithophobia, they give me the creeps

 

I’ve just signed up; there were no personal questions, or “tennis court” questions. Just name, address, am I over 18, was I a member?

 

I was once crossing a university quadrangle with a girl I’d not known for very long when she suddenly leapt into my arms. I thought “steady on, I’m not into that kind of thing” when she pointed to a pigeon minding its own business on the ground about twenty yards away. She implored me to get rid of it. I extricated myself from her grip and waved my arms around a bit. It flew off. She shrieked. Then she explained that she hated birds. I’d never heard of anybody who hated birds.

 

I know a few people who don't like them.
It's a nuisance in a town, I end up crossing the road several times to avoid the pigeons. When Beryl (late partner) was alive she'd go in front of me and shoo them away.