Get Ready for the Big Garden Birdwatch 2019

  • 10th Jan 2019

Birdwatching is a fantastic experience for those with a love for nature and the great outdoors. Keen bird watchers should be sure to participate in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, which takes place on the weekend of the 26th-29th January 2019.

This annual event allows you to contribute to scientific knowledge while also enjoying the birdlife in your very own garden. Sign up and you can get a handy pack sent to you, or choose the paperless option and get access to an online package instead. Visit the website, www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/ to sign up.

The data collected during the Big Garden Birdwatch allows the RSPB to monitor bird populations and find out how well or how badly they are doing in different parts of the country. This is vital to discovering where problems lie, and is the first step towards working to put things right.

But for keen campers, and all those birdwatchers who love the great outdoors, there is another plus to taking part – learning to identify different bird species could really enhance camping and outdoors adventures throughout the whole year.

You may already be familiar with many of the most common garden bird species in the UK. While in your garden, when taking part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, or when out and about on your camping trips, you may well see plenty of blackbirds, robins, blue tits, great tits, coal tits, chaffinches, dunnocks, goldfinches, greenfinches, wood pigeons, collared doves, magpies and starlings.

But every now and then you may come face to face with a more unusual or unfamiliar bird. To help you (or your children) to identify them, you could consider purchasing a good bird identification book. Alternatively, the RSBP has a free to use online tool to help you identify many of the main species that you are likely to encounter in the UK. Not only will this be useful during the bird count itself, it could also be useful when you are on your camping holidays later in 2019.