Chris's Country Files: If you build it, they will come. ?

Google tells me that both Kevin Costner and the RSPB said that.

Seeing as I don't want to build a baseball stadium, lets go with the RSPB slogan and their 'homes for nature' campaign.

Three weeks ago we moved house. I know, It's like I'm a serial mover.. God knows how many times that is so far this decade! But this new house is good, very good. And so is the garden.

After moving from 'the estate with no trees' as I used to call in on Picket Twenty, (a new development on the edge of town), we are now back in the neighbourhood of Rooksbury, a place that needs no introduction to anyone that knows me.

The four minute walk from door to riverbank is bloody nice. I'm back to losing ridiculous amounts of time looking around the lakes and the river system that is on the doorstep, but the other benefit of this house move is the large mature garden, complete with a large apple tree and mature shrubs and lawn. This place has real potential for wildlife and that 'home for nature'.

On P20 I didn't even bother doing the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch (BGBW) as no birds came. Ok one, randomly a Chiffchaff visited the garden on a few occasions. Other than that it was barren.

The food on the feeders went mouldy and bread uneaten.

Moving in on the 23rd January, I had a week to get the feeders up and try and lure some birds in for the following weekend's BGBW. Midweek I was wondering if anything would come at all! All the neighbouring properties turned out to have feeders up and a steady stream of visitors; why WOULD they come to our garden when they already had an established food source... But come they did and still do. A good variety of garden birds now calling our place home too, or at least a good food stop.

Back to the BGBW and I decided to spend my 'birdwatch hour' watching on the Sunday morning as this gave the birds an extra day to find the feeders and Saturday night was colder than Friday. I was hoping the birds would have been more hungry.

9:30 a.m. Bread out, feeders topped up, cuppa made, sit back and watch and record. Hopefully...

Truthfully I wasn't optimistic. The 'all you can eat' buffet seemed to be next door and the birds need to land in your garden to count... then... BOOM! The first visitor was a male Blackcap in the shrubs. That's a damn good garden tick in my book!

The hour went very quickly, there were peaks and troughs. Absolutely nothing for five minutes at a time, then halfway through we had a very busy five minutes in which we saw Greenfinch, Coal Tit, Wren and Starling.

I was smiling :-)

From no birds the previous year to the following in an hour. (Only birds that landed count and these are the most seen at one time).

1 blackcap
3 house sparrow
3 blue tit
5 Starling
1 woodpigeon
1 coal tit
2 chaffinch
2 Long Tailed Tit
1 Greenfinch (possibly 4)
1 carrion crow
2 wren
1 blackbird
1 Robin
1 magpie.

A lot of those were first time visitors to the garden., I had good vibes for this place!

Since then it seems that I am back to the days of Holtwood, sitting in the conservatory, busy watching what ever is visiting. Since the BGBW we've added Goldcrest, Rook, Goldfinch and Jackdaw to the list. Heron and Buzzard over and lots of gulls.

Going forward I want to create our own little backyard wildlife haven, with the kids help we'll put the bat box up and a few bird boxes. Build a bug hotel and put up a few solitary bee pipes on the apple tree etc. A few Buddliea at the top of the garden. I'm gonna explore the possibility of a Nestcam too.

I may be getting a bit carried away here!

Here's a pic of the garden to show what we have to play with.