I spent my Saturday this weekend counting birds. I have decided to try a few of the local Wildlife Trust’s workshops in order to get more from my hobbies. The first one was the most obvious for me – Bird Monitoring, held at Pitsford Reservoir. (I am hoping to be able to carry out some surveys in Daventry to monitor the effect of all of the expansions on the area’s wildlife.)
I was not sure what to expect, and was concerned that I would be out of my depth, not to mention the change in the weather forecast!
We spent the morning learning about the different types of surveys in use and then tried looking at some of the data from the previous year’s survey. What can I say, there is a lot of data to collect for somewhere like Pitsford, and, not all of it is as easy to interpret as you would think. In the afternoon we went out and about; looking in nestboxes (the Tawny Owl chick being a particular hit) and then trying to count up the number of tiny little birds in those big verdant trees!
What did I come away with – a knowledge of how to carry out a survey, a desire to join the BTO (British Trust for Ornithology), a need to learn to recognise bird calls and songs, and a photo of a Tawny Owl.