Bird Counting
Since a few years back, Sveriges Ornitologiska Förening (Swedish ornithological association) has been involving the public in a great bird-counting exercise every January. Between dawn on a friday and dusk the monday after, we’re encouraged to keep track of what birds visit our bird feeders. More specifically we’re supposed to report the greatest number of each species observed at once. The resulting data is used to track fluctuations in bird populations all over Sweden.
It’s a fantastic way to involve the general public in scientific endeavours. The only thing I could wish for is that they’d push that side of things a little more - make people aware that that’s what they’re doing. Sure, the data is perhaps not as rigorous as would be required to publish in a scientific journal, but it’s definitely good enough for tracking changes and getting some idea of what’s going on.
Anyway, naturally me and my parents were keeping unusually close tabs on our own little feeding station over the weekend. This year our count was:
Great tit: >20. Probably at least 25. It’s very difficult to count when there’s that many!
Blue tit: 6. For a long time we spotted no more than two or three at the same time. Then we supplied an extra ball of fat (I have yet to find out what this might be called in English - it might be a scandinavian phenomenon. Looks like this.) and that brought them out of hiding.
Coal tit: 3. There might have been one or two more but we rarely see many of these at the same time.
Marsh tit: 2. Conspicuously absent most of the time. Marsh tit are normally regulars.
Yellowhammer: 2. And only for a brief time. We don’t supply oats so we’re probably not their favourite feeder.
Great spotted woodpecker: 1. Liked the peanuts but avoided the pig fat, oddly enough.
Nuthatch: 2.
Blackbird: 6. Mostly active at the crack of dawn when the other birds are barely awake. Likes apples.
Long-tailed tit: 6. Was so stoked to see a group of these absolutely adorable little tits on sunday. You know how some people go all gaga over cute puppies? That’s me with long-tailed tits. I start squeaking baby-talk for a few minutes.
These are pretty low figures and above all there’s several species missing. Where’s our friend the crested tit? Where are the jays? And what about the greenfinches and chaffinches? And my personal favourite the treecreeper? Part of the explanation is probably that weather has been pretty abysmal - above all it’s been too warm. When there’s no snow on the ground, the birds don’t particularly need the feeder. Many of them still show up, but nowhere near the great variety we see when it’s cold and snowy.
Are you, maybe, talking about “suet” under the Blue Tit heading? What’s the Swedish word for it?
Comment by mikespeir — Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 17:57
The swedish word is “talgboll”, and yes I had encountered the word suet when looking for the english equivalent. Now that I think about it it’s probably the same kind of fat (I don’t have a dictionary but I would guess talg = suet). However, the word “talgboll” specifically refers to a ball of suet mixed with seeds and enclosed in a plastic net.
Comment by Felicia Gilljam — Friday, January 30, 2009 @ 18:02
We have a similar event here in the U.S. called “The Great Backyard Bird Count” which will be held over President’s weekend (February 13-16)and the rules are the same.
The “ball of fat” would be the equivalent of suet (actually the fat around the kidneys of a cow, usually rendered to remove perishable connective tissue), sometimes mixed with nuts, etc. We’re having a cold and snowy winter so far this year in the northeast and birds are hitting the feeders in big numbers.
Comment by JohnB — Saturday, January 31, 2009 @ 04:30