Your participation in The Bailiwick Big Garden Birdwatch begins here.

Welcome to the second Bailiwick Big Garden Birdwatch. During the difficult periods of lockdown many people have enjoyed the birds in their garden, some discovering the delights of observing our feathered friends for the first time. This citizen science initiative is an opportunity to take part in the ABO’s research, in this incidence helping us to deliver the most comprehensive census of garden birds in the history of the Bailiwick islands! Holding a garden birdwatch survey at this time of year is important in allowing us to build a picture of how well (or not so well) our breeding garden birds are doing, by the end of April most of the species attracted to your garden either to nest or to visit for food during their nesting period are established and hard at work. Birdwatching has no boundaries and the opportunity for you to enjoy the birds that have chosen your garden awaits you. Young or old, expert or novice, here is a chance to help us help the Bailiwick ilsands birds.

During the last week of April 2021 starting Saturday 24th and ending Friday 30th, we would like you to record as many birds as possible that visit your garden. A 7-day checklist of bird species likely to visit you will appear here on this web page for you to fill in each day or for as many as you are able. Once completed, clicking a simple ‘send’ button will enable us to collate the information you provide.

To register to take part simply email our observatory warden John Horton on abo.warden@outlook.com with your first name or a bird name if you prefer? We will send out a reminder email to you just ahead of the event. Further information about how to attract birds to your garden and some tips about how best to go about spotting your birds will be available here in the lead up to the 24th April.

Enjoy, understand and help The Bailiwick’s Birds!

The ABO team.

Taking Part

Record species that you are confident you can identify correctly; if you can’t identify the less common birds in your garden, it’s ok to leave them off. If you see something that you would like conformation of, or help with identification, email your photo to our warden John Horton on abo.warden@outlook.com

You should only record birds actually visiting your garden. For example:
Birds on your bird feeders, perching in shrubs or nesting on your house.
Birds feeding on insects in your garden, e.g. Swallows flying low.

Do not include birds that are flying past overhead and not using your garden.

It’s fine to just record if a species is present by putting a tick in the box next to the species on the recording chart. If you choose to include a count, remember that it should be the maximum number of the species that you saw together at any one time (e.g. three Blackbirds seen at the same time). You should not add counts from different times together. If you see two Blue Tits on your bird feeder one day, then four together another day in the same week, this should be recorded as four, as this is the maximum.

We are interested in records from all gardens, even if you don’t see many birds! Records from a small town gardens are just as valuable as those from a large rural garden.

You can spend as much or little time as you like recording for BBGB, but ideally please try to spend a consistent amount of time making your observations each day so that they are comparable with each other.

It is certainly the case that an early start watching your garden birds will result in you seeing more birds. If you have feeders in your garden make sure you have them topped up at least a week before the start so that the birds get used to the regular food source and add your garden to their rounds!

In the build up to your garden birdwatch (as you can see below) we are building up a photo/reference library to many of the different birds you may see in your garden.