Look out for me too

We're now two days away from the Big Garden Birdwatch weekend (28-30th January), and the goldfinch is another bird to look out for.  Sightings of these beautiful little birds in our gardens have increased dramatically in the last forty years.  This is at least in part due to increased feeding of garden birds, particularly with seeds that they favour such as nyger and sunflower hearts.

At this time of year, we have a charm of goldfinches in and around our garden and the lane outside the house.  This one was feeding on blackthorn, it looked like it was taking the tiny buds, so perhaps we will have fewer flowers and sloes this year.

Incredibly, over a million people returned results from last year's Big Garden Birdwatch.  Now that we are all out and about this more this year, will that number of participants fall back?  It will be interesting to see.  Even if it does, this long-running annual survey is one of the best examples of the value of Citizen Science in the UK.

Meanwhile, Gus is having a good few days, although not so good for C who had to get up with him during the night.  She thought he was getting excited by the scent of a female dog drifting into the house.  There certainly is life in the old dog yet.