Features

1. Great spotted woodpeckers make their distinctive knocking sound by striking a branch with their bills 40 times a second!

2. Starlings are outstanding mimics, and incorporate accurate copies of sounds of other birds, frogs and mammals, and even of mechanical sounds into their song

3. Collared doves aren’t great nest makers – sometimes chicks fall through the flimsy branches

4. Robins and wrens share a reputation for nesting in strange places – sheds, greenhouses, hanging baskets – even a pocket in washing left on the line

5. Dunnocks are often chosen as hosts by cuckoos and the ‘step-parent’ may even have to stand on the back of its ‘offspring’ to feed it

6. The goldcrest has to eat its own weight in food each day to survive the cold, winter nights!

7. Swifts and house martins sleep on the wing. Shortly before dusk birds gather and ascend high up in the air to roost in a warmer air layer some 1,000-2,000m above ground

8. Goldfinches are the home decorators of the bird world, sometimes they decorate the outside of their nests with aromatic flowers

9. Woodpeckers have long been associated with water and it was often believed that a woodpecker drumming signified rain

10. Robins first appeared on Christmas cards as a representation of Victorian postmen, who wore red tunics and were known as ‘redbreasts’

11. The usual flying speed of a sparrowhawk is 30-40 kph, but its capable of up to 50 kph in short bursts

12. Starlings - You can tell the sexes apart by the colour of the base of the bill - blue for boys, pink for girls!

13. Swallows are considered to be a sign of good luck. Traditionally a farmer never destroyed a swallow nest in fear of the adverse events that might befall him

14. During the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch 2006, more than 270,000 gardens were surveyed, that’s the equivalent of 7,000 football pitches!

15. The long-tailed tit makes a tennis-ball sized nest out of moss and spiders’ webs. As the fluffy chicks grow, the nest expands around them

16. The willow tit likes to store food and may hide away as many as 4,700 food items, mostly insects and spiders

17. Migrating swallows cover 200 miles a day, mainly during daylight, at speeds of 17-22mph

18. Starlings often roost in massive numbers. These roosts are incredible spectacles – some city hot spots can contain over a million birds!

19. Despite being the most recorded garden bird during the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch the house sparrow is a red-listed species and is of conservation concern

20. A blue tit weighs the same as a pound coin

21. House martins fly all the way to tropical Africa for the winter, yet find their way back to exactly the same nest the following spring (and that’s without sat nav!)

22. Blackbirds love to sunbathe – they can often be seen on the ground with their wings spread

23. If you love blue tits, head to Powys in Wales – during the 2008 Big Garden
Birdwatch this is the place they were spotted most frequently

24. The goldcrest is the smallest bird in Britain weighing under seven grams and with a wingspan of just 13-15 cm

25. Many dozens of blue tits can pass through a garden on a single day even though there are never more than three or four at any one time

26. If a long-tailed tit pair’s breeding attempt fails, the couple will split up and return to the nest of a sibling to help raise the chicks

27. Almost nine million birds were counted as part of the RSPB’s 2004 Big Garden Birdwatch – that’s more than the combined human population of Scotland and Wales!

28. If you see a jay in your garden, there’s likely to be at least one oak tree nearby. Jays love acorns, and often bury stores of them for winter, accidentally causing new oak trees to grow

29. Although generally it’s the male birds who do all the singing, female robins aren’t letting the boys have it all their own way! Robins are one of the few birds where the female sings too

30. According to Big Garden Birdwatch results, chaffinches are now the most common bird in Scottish gardens.