With snow lying since late December and temperatures rarely rising above freezing for over a month our feeders have been emptying fast every day so I expected to see far more birds than last year when the weather was mild for this year's RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. In fact though there were only three more birds than 2020 and one less species.
Looking through previous years results I think this is because last year's numbers were high given the mild weather rather than this year's being low.
The species missing this year that we saw last year and in previous years is the greenfinch. Until a few weeks ago we were seeing several every day but since then there hasn't been a single one. We also haven't seen any siskins for many weeks but these do come in waves - many for a few weeks then none for a while.
Coal tits were the commonest bird this year with sixteen individuals. As they dart in and out so fast counting them is difficult and I suspect the figure is an underestimate. Chaffinches are usually the commonest by far - twenty last year and only four of any other species - but this year there were only nine.
Here's the full list of this year's birds.
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