{"id":21129,"date":"2016-02-01T10:02:19","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T10:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=21129"},"modified":"2016-02-01T10:36:14","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T10:36:14","slug":"big-garden-birdwatch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2016\/02\/big-garden-birdwatch\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Garden Birdwatch"},"content":{"rendered":"

We had an extra incentive to do the Big Garden Birdwatch this year: points for the Green Impact Scheme.<\/p>\n

The Green Impact Scheme<\/a> is an NUS run scheme that the University take part in aimed at reducing waste, improving efficiency and general saving the planet. I mentioned it a while back when we did the Big Black Out event with them, but this year one of the criteria within the biodiversity section of the Silver Award was to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch. We usually do this anyway so it was going to be a nice easy point to get. I’m aiming to get the Silver Award this year after getting the bronze last year, so ticking off this criteria was a step in the right direction.<\/p>\n

After my social bike ride all morning I\u00a0didn’t get home until gone 2pm so we\u00a0didn’t have much time to fit it in before it started getting dark. I’d also just warmed up after the ride and was eating my lunch so decided it would be easier, cosier and a lot more comfortable to do it from the warmth and comfort of the living room rather than the cold hard floors of the conservatory. This did mean that we\u00a0should be looking for and counting birds in our front ‘garden’ which is barely a garden at all, especially compared to the back garden. It would be interesting to see how they compare.<\/p>\n

It was quite a slow start with just a small flock of house sparrows but\u00a0in the end we\u00a0didn’t do too badly considering the grey, windy day that we had to work with and the fact that there were two cats patrolling\u00a0in the garden for some of it. Here’s our tally<\/p>\n