It’s neither Du Maurier nor Hitchcock but…

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The birds in my garden are fascinating to watch, so much so that my number fetish has struck again.

I have recorded what I saw each day over a number of years since 2003. Because something appears to have changed I have started again. However her indoors gets upset from time to time because I leave my clipboard, pen and binoculars where apparently they shouldn’t be. Nevertheless I have persisted and can share some statistics with you.

I record the number of different birds I see each day and calculate the percentage days on which they appear each month. The rules are:

- the bird has to be in my garden
- or can be seen from my garden
- even if it is just flying over
- I may be outside my garden looking in
- When outside flying birds and those in neighbours' gardens don’t count.

It doesn’t matter how numerous they are on any day; in my stats a sighting is recorded for just one bird of each type.

In December 2008 the three most common birds were the woodpigeon, rook and blackbird. Woodpigeons were seen every day. 22 different species were seen during the month, and an average of 7.1 each day.

The bird of the month has to be the heron seen flying lazily over in the early morning like a silent grey flying boat.

This picture is of herons on the Portrack nature reserve near the Tees Barrage.

My favourite of the month was the visit of a family of long tailed tits and too many of them to count.

In December 2003 the top two were the blackbird and greenfinch with collared doves, blue tits and robins equal third. The blackbird and greenfinch were ever present. Then the woodpigeons were only present on 25% of days. 24 different species were seen with an average of 11.5 per day

The food in our bird feeder lasts much longer now that the numbers of small birds have declined.