At the end of every January, the RSPB holds its “Big Garden Birdwatch” weekend — where the British public are encouraged to pick a single, random, daylight hour, then record the birds they see during that time. The information is then submitted to the RSPB, by way of monitoring the nation’s whole “feathers and beaks situation”.
I’ll be honest — the lead-up to this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch was an incredibly fraught time for me. There’s never been any actual, formal acknowledgment of this from the RSPB, but, when it comes to birds, I am not like the majority of the British population. My relationship with the RSPB is more of a… partnership of equals. We have the same goals. The same scale of ambition. There’s a silent — totally silent — understanding that when I made my garden into a groundbreaking sanctuary for birds, with the introduction of a couple of shrubs and five feeders (peanuts, niger seeds, mixed seed, dried worms, FAT BALLS), that it was, in its way, a comparable project to RSPB Minsmere (2,500 acres, reed beds, bitterns).
This is why the ramp into BGB26 has been difficult. You see, I’m in a bit of a… situation with my goldfinches. As in, they’ve gone. Kaput. Haven’t seen them since last May. Also, I’m down a chaffinch, and it seems like my goldcrest — which miraculously turned up during BGB25 — was a one-off event. What I’m saying is, my metrics are down. Really down. Bird-wise, I’m on the slide.
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In the weeks leading up to BGB26, I kept imagining the confused silence — occasionally broken by shocked gasps — that would descend on the RSPB head office in Sandy, Bedfordshire, when it received this year’s stats from me.
“What the hell?” Beccy Speight, RSPB chief executive, would say, staring at my online form. “This isn’t like Caitlin. She’s usually such a safe pair of hands. Have the birds turned on her?”
I think we all understand that when the stakes are this high, you have to be prepared to be… flexible, rule-wise.
Accordingly, on the first day of BGB26, I both scatter the entire garden with nearly two kilos of bird food and agree with myself that I will only start the clock on my hour-long observation after I’ve seen a high-value bird. Theoretically, sure, the important thing here is data. But glory needs consideration, also. I am not going to submit a report that consists of three tits and a pigeon. I’m just better than that.
Which is why it’s vexing that, by Saturday sundown, all I have seen is three tits and a pigeon.
I sleep ill that night.
“Now look, birds — this is double or quits,” I say at 7am the next day, by the kitchen window, monocular in hand. “I need some quid pro quo here. Get on my lavishly stocked feeders. I need to log you.”
But in a way that’s quite eerie, there are no birds in my garden. Not visible, anyway. They’re all in the trees, chattering to each other.
“Dudes!” I cry. “Stop quacking and get on my fat balls! This is bordering on rude.”
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However, it takes until 2pm for the drought to finally break — with the rock-star arrival of two jays, in pink and blue. I start the clock on my Observation Hour, now I’ve got something properly swaggy.
The swag continues when, 20 minutes later, a lesser spotted woodpecker not only lands on my feeder, but then also does some nominative determinism, by pecking at some wood. Which is awesome.
By 2.53pm I’ve logged two blackbirds, two robins, a thrush, six parakeets — plus the boring blah tits and pigeons. To be honest, I’m a bit pissed off with the wren — she’s not bothered to show her face, the ungrateful bitch — but, still. I’m confident Speight will agree with me: this haul equals a like-for-like substitute for last year’s goldfinches, maintaining my reputation within the RSPB. I’m back on top.
And then, in the ivy, something moves. I monocular it hard — russet cap, dun body, a sprinkle of white wing feathers — but it merely confirms what I knew anyway: I have never seen this bird before. The female blackcap is a totally new species to my garden. And on Big Garden Birdwatch day! The RSPB folk are going to lose their minds over my supremacy.
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Just as Pete comes into the room, I start crying. “They knew!” I say, as the eye-hole of my monocular fills with tears.
“What? Who knew?”
“The birds,” I say. “They knew how important this was for me — they were all talking to each other earlier — and they sent the blackcap. They get it. They get me.”
Pete sighs and leaves the room again. I log onto the RSPB website and start telling them the good news.
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