Bird box news!

In a survey by radio company PURE, birdsong was voted as the favourite sound to wake up to in the morning.

In  a poll of 2,000 people birdsong was chosen ahead of church bells, WW2 sirens, dog barking and alarm tunes. A spokesperson for the RSPB said

the human is naturally atuned to birdsong, which is why many people find it a gentle and enjoyable sound to wake up to.

Isn’t it such a shame that the digital radio station Birdsong FM close down last year?

Just a quick mention for you. Next weekend, 30 & 31st January is the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch when we all need to count birds for an hour. There’s all the information you need via that link so I won’t repeat it all here.

I think we’ll get our children involved – they’ll enjoy doing it and we’ll have some fun too.

I’ve seen this mentioned a few times recently in gift lists so I’d thought I’d mention it too. Bill Oddie’s Little Black Bird Book (available from amazon) seems to be a popular choice as an inexpensive gift for bird lovers!

Well what a disappointment! I thought I’d listen to Birdsong FM on my DAB radio this afternoon only to find that it’s closed down last month and has been replaced by a station called Amazing Radio.

If you’ve never heard of it, Birdsong FM replaced a defunct digital radio station called OneWord. All you’d here on Birdsong FM was a repeated 20 minute recording of singing garden birds. That was it all day long, every day from 6am til midnight. It was great as unobtrusive background noise. I tended to listen to it on and off over the winter because in the summer I just open the window and listen to the real thing.

The station had something of a cult following and was often popular in such places as doctors waiting rooms and even prisons! There are now many calls for Birdsong FM to be brought back though I can’t see how it can fund itself unless it contains adverts or attracts a good sponsorship deal.

Let’s hope it’s back on our airwaves soon.

The RSPB (join here) suggests that there is a decline in the swift population as a result of building repairs and demolitions. As swifts almost always nest in holes, nooks and crannies high up in buildings, declining nesting places gives rise to a decline in the swift population. As more properties are renovated the swifts are finding it increasingly difficult to find somewhere to nest.

Some interesting facts about swifts:

• Swifts pair for life
• They return from Africa to the UK each spring to the same nest sites
• They spend alomost their entire life on the wing
• They eat, mate and even sleep in flight.

The Scottish SPCA has said that it has noticed a sharp rise in the number of attacks on birds by other birds.

They have had reported cases of:

• adult owls attacked by groups of crows
• tawny owl chicks attacked and killed by larger birds
• increasing cases of birds being attacked by domestic cats, crows or gulls.

I’ve no idea if this rise in attacks is unique to Scotland or whether England and Wales are seeing similar increases too.

With Fathers Day fast approaching you might want to treat Dads & Grandads in the family to a great RSPB membership.

RSPB Membership offers FREE entry to over 100 nature reserves across the country and aFREE quarterly magazine that’s packed with amazing photos of birds and wildlife plus news and views on nature and the environment. What’s more, people can also choose a FREE joining gift to give to their Dad, Grandad . or perhaps even keep for themselves!

Right now, if someone buys RSPB Membership online, they can choose either the RSPB Handbook of Garden Wildlife (until 30 June), the RSPB Handbook of British Birds or a qualityRSPB seed feeder to help attract birds to the garden!

Join here

I read the other day that the RSPB is urging home owners not to try and rescue young birds. The RSPB phone lines were jammed in May with calls from concerned people who have found young birds that appear to either abandoned or distressed.

Richard James from the RSPB says:

Many people think that they are helping by placing stray chicks in a box, some greenery or back in the nest they came from. But they could be killing them with kindness and it’s vital that the chicks remain untouched.

Although they sit there looking vunerable and sounding distressed you can be sure that the adult birds will be close by and they will know what to do.

The Telegraph had an interesting article about bird attraction – or lack of in this case. A survey suggests that city and rural birds do not get on with each other – just like us humans – because they aren’t attracted to each others songs!

A survey of the garden bird across Britain has shown that in urban and city areas that are quite noisy the birds pitch their songs higher than in quieter, rural areas. When recordings were played to birds from differing urban and rural locations the birds failed to respond to the recorded songs.

The scientists suggest that male great tit birds pitch their songs higher to be heard over the urban noise.

Did you know that here in the UK, bird tagging has been taking place for 100 years? The process of fitting birds with numbered rings in Britain and Ireland was started by ornithologists at Aberdeen University on May 8 1909. The British Trust for Ornithology says that during these 100 years 36 million birds have been tagged. Currently volunteers ring more than 800,000 birds each year.

Birds ringed here have been found in places such as:

• Siberia
• Canadian Arctic
• Australia
• Gambia (caught by a crocodile)

For more information visit the BTO bird ringing page.