The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

cards, didn't you? Different flakes of the world or cars of the world, the soldiers, and then you had birds of the world, and they were only about that big, like little card like a green

“thing, you should have black birds. And then I always remember Gordon at the garden and putting”

him in the trees and the edges. Because of the other birds might be attracted to them, and it might encourage them to nest, and you know, come on to our garden. I think, remember we don't see that. I don't think you're going to watch a little with that, Sean. I must have got a young, so I must have started earlier this fascination bird. I'm Sean Bean and this is get birding collaboration with Forestolidis.

Hey, have you ever heard an eye to duck? No. It's so like Frankie Howard. Oh, yeah, exactly, I think a cross this new season, and be learning birding how tools for 2026. I think it can be very confusing when people are looking at getting their first pair of binoculars, because it all looks very kind of numerical, but what you're actually looking at is these two numbers. So mine, for example, eight by 42, which means they have a magnification of eight, and that

this is 42 millimeters, meaning it gets lots of lighter, and you can see better in the dark stuff like that. Yeah, I've got a few dials on my video for it. Once you start taking an interest in the birds that are really coming to your garden, or you're seeing in your local park, or a bat in the skies, once you start learning about them, they're just such incredible, beautiful creatures. It's really life enhancing. It really is. It's like

a party that's just never ending. You'll also be hearing from familiar voices from the

get-birding community. Like, "Docton Maya Rose Craig?" "What do you reckon?" "I'm too old too." Yeah, that's I was thinking. I love them, because they literally like, a lollipop, but it's a bird, really, aren't they? Yeah, a little pompom, aren't they? Jason Singh? It puffs itself up, and it comes up to you, and it's like, "Yo, listen, I'm here, I'm the Robin, where is it feels like with Sparrow's, they're

crew, they're a collective, they're a wee." And me, City Girl Nature, it doesn't matter where you are, you can be with Sean Bean in the countryside. Now, test-drills in it, that's all years ago. Make sure that we should fantastic. For me, in southeast London, out there we go, for a little arguing. Get birding, it's for everyone.

Wherever you are, first time or an experience bird on. There's probably similar for you,

“but I think a lot of people have that kind of childhood magic, that kind of has continued”

into adulthood of bird watching. Yeah. In my, like, a bias to be in here. Yeah, man, it looks like it's here. I don't think so, yeah. This first episode is all about getting ready for the big garden bird watch. To tell us more about it, and I can get involved this year, I'm going to call any chest doctor and president of the RSPB Dr. Amir Khan. So, it's an annual kind of survey that the RSPB

have been putting on since 1979, and it encourages everyone across the country, whether they have a garden or a local park or whatever, even a window box to spend an hour counting the birds that land in their area. So, it just gives us an idea of which garden birds are doing well, and which ones need a bit more support. Yeah. You can just go online and you can download or ask for a pack to be posted to you, and it's free. And so, in that

it's got like a form you can fill out to see the birds that you've seen, but also a little identification thing. So, if you're not a birder, which is, you know, we want everyone, don't we really? So, whether you're an experienced birder or not, you can take off the birds you see, because they'll be pictures of each of the common garden birds.

“And match them up with what you've seen. So, it's really useful, because I think a lot”

of us assume that common birds like sparrows and starlings are doing really well, because we get a lot of them in our garden, but actually numbers are perhaps with most things, numbers are steadily decreased. Even though the sparrow was still the most common bird that we're getting in our gardens, the overall numbers are decreasing. I've got this book, it went from readers' digest, it's a big book with an owl on the front, and it's gotten

these lovely pictures in it. But it's from 1973, I think, and it's very outdated now,

because the sparrow population then was incredible. I mean, I called from Sheffield, you know,

we lived on an hours in a steer, and they were everywhere. But I mean, that drop in, I think

Yeah, that's right. It's a real significant drop, but it just goes to show, and it's

at the same with starlings, you know, again, a common bird that you'd see in huge flocks, wouldn't you, a garden coming in and chattering and making all that lovely noise? And we very rarely get starlings, all sparrows in our garden as well. We're only outskirts of Yorkshire now, but, you know, even still, when I, we get loads of birds in the garden, but when I see a sparrow, even though, because they're not so common for us, I get quite excited about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it reminds me of being up north and up in Yorkshire. Yeah, exactly. And what is it? Is it just, is it kind of festive sides of, because houses are not built with nooks and crannies that they used to be? Yeah, it's a combination of things. So habitat losses of it is a big thing to a lot of our gardens, even in urban areas, I get an entirely, uh, and there's a lot of kind of insects in those places of food is becoming scarce.

And you're right, housing has changed as well. Yeah. And there was a much wildlife being

“clammed into those. No. I think that's, that's really important isn't it? We need to make”

sure we get the houses, but also we plan around nature. So we're getting the benefits of having nature in our, in our areas. Yeah, I'm fair to short. Are you, are you, are you keeping there? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm, I have been for a long time, since I was a kid real, I was

so young and, uh, I've always kept it going, you know, between jobs and stuff like

some times of, you know, let it go for a bit. Well, I always come back to it, you know, I know, and that, and I live now, I've got about three acres here. So we've got a big garden, a planted loads of trees and stuff and I've got feeders in this box. So I'm, I'm, you know, watching them every day and that when I'm not working. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you always come back to me. Don't you? I think when it comes to good, yeah, yeah. And when you go back

to me, you realize what you've been missing. It's, it's so gorgeous. Yeah, it's like a bonus in your life, you know, and then the midst of all the work that we do and, you know, and the precious and

“tendons of. As you say, you know, when you come back to watching the birds and I think that”

how, that you spend watching the birds with the big garden bird watch, is yet we know we're doing it because the main reason is, is for looking at which birds are doing all, which ones are not. But that hour is so good for our own health as well, right? Yeah, we get so much out of it, which is as much as the birds do. You do, don't, yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, I can hear the birds in the background of you, actually. Yeah, this quite, quite a few more, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You get, um, you get red, kind of call me though. I quite a lot of buzzards around here as well, Sparrow walks, um, cholesterol. Yeah, because I was thinking with all the grass you've got you, but it's probably such a good habitat for kind of all the things, all the little things that they eat. Yeah, I'm so, you know, I'm just left this light, there's something to leave it like this, because there's so much richness, there's so many wild plants and seeds and, you know,

nettles, which are good for the butterflies. Just nice to have a bit of patch light this, you know, on, uh, because it looks very, very dribble now, but I like, I quite like that, all different, uh, kind of, you know, these pastel colors. Yeah, but once it gets going, you know, it'll be like a

jungle, you know, and then you see different things. Yeah, that sounds incredible. I guess, like,

one of the easiest things that people can do to get more birds really is just let it

“be a little bit more wild, but then that's all right. Yeah, I think so, you know, as long as you”

can get through it, you've got a path. Yeah, if you've got a message, you make your way up to Pandoyer. Dr. Maya Ross Krieg presented the very first season of this podcast, and she's just the right person to keep us all on the right track, head of the big garden bird watch and beyond. I was a call it bird watching her own anthology, but then you've got like, bird in and twitchy. Watch the difference. Birds are going bird watching a probably the same thing, really.

Versus twitching is, um, when we're getting much more into that very competitive, nervous side of things. Yeah, and they're twitching because they're excited about the birds. Yeah, that's the idea. Oh, I see. But I think, kind of, with twitching, you're going to a specific place to see a specific bird normally, very rare, quite often, like, not from the UK, for example, which is when it does get quite competitive in a fun way, normally. Versus bird watching,

I genuinely think bird watching can be literally going out into your garden, sitting, watching birds. You're a bird watching. Yeah, so twitching is a bit more serious. My family were twitches actually, and we used to get off at like three o'clock in the morning and go off to like North Scotland from some of that, to go and see a crane or something that's pitted like it was very, because it is fun, like I'm making it sound like it's very serious,

and it's not. We used to go in all these like adventures looking for stuff and end up in really weird places. I mean, we used to do that. We used to have flumber ahead, and at that

flamingo's there. Pink flamingo. We told at local, you know, my life people and they were in the paper. But Versus was a place like that, and they were memorable. There were my friends

“and I remember it in that year's in the year I was 13, 14, but it's an adventure in itself, isn't it?”

I'm going to give somebody else a call. You'll know them for that incredible voice with elbow. Yeah, you're looking good mate. Yeah, right, guys. But maybe not for the love of birdwatching. Cold in it. It's very nice to meet there. Yeah, nice to meet you too, and a fan of yours and

you're always there. First time I've done anything like this, you know, podcast, and they said

you were coming up, but I was really happy, you know, because as I said, I like you music, and I said, "Oh, guy, go on man, I says it." Yeah, sure. Yeah, sure, sure. I saw you years ago in a pub in Manchester, and I wanted to come over and say hello, and I bottle it. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is made up for that. So you're interested in birdwatching in that, yeah. In my, in my late 20s, I had a flat in the central Manchester that was renting off my pal.

It had a, had a balcony, and a big patio window. Yeah. And I left a saucer on it, and the saucer filled you rainwater, and long story short, a missile thrush started fledging its yawning on the balcony. Because of the which way all faced and everything, there was big reflections on the window, so you could get right up close and look at this happening. And without the bird seeing him being startles. Yeah, so I started, I mean, it was really beautiful thing to watch, and then I started

looking around at the different birds and because they cleaned the canals up, those heren on the canal in the middle of Manchester, and also I see these gold finch everywhere, and I read, if you get Niger-seed, it's like gold finch crack. So, yeah, I saw a home one right in front of my patio window, and then suddenly I had almost, I'd say, 20 gold finch that all times outside. I mean, it started from there, really. Birdwatches about twitches would call me a robbing stroker.

“I don't go running off to find them, it's what comes in my garden. What about you, Sean?”

It's hard to explain, it was a gradual thing, and that always been interested in wild life.

I used to, you know, when I was very young, you know, you've got always interested in books about dinosaurs and prehistoric animals, and then I started noticing the things that were around us, and there was a plethora of birds, types, then, you know, I used to just not far in the field, just over the road where we used to live, used to be just there. Just lay down, you know, in a field, and you start skylarks, and you could hear them. For ages, and ages, it's just twitching and twitching

and going around, and I was to have a couple of friends, my friend called Stuart Oxlad, and they were on call Michael Ragan, and others. And so we really got into it, and then we became quite competitive, putting up feeders and bird tables, making nest boxes, and horns, because I was quite good at drawing and at school, and painting, and I'd draw it. I don't want a prize, you know,

“for art, and I've got, I think, the new I liked, bird watchy, so it was a little bulk called,”

bird watchy in the British Isles, you know, and I was very proud of that coming first in art,

and I was also pleased to get the book, you know, stuff like that, you know, there's just a certain attraction, I don't know what I say, it's really, it really settles you mind, and it really focuses you, I guess it's like playing a music lens from, and you can't be thinking of anything else when you're in the garden, you're looking out for birds, you bird watchy, you know, because everything else floats away on your troubles, you know, and you know, you're just totally

focused on something on nature, which is beneath that fee, which you feel, which is very grounding, kind of, I had a very grounding influence on Megan, I guess, helped in my career as well as, well, if you say it, I should imagine it's like your business, you've got this,

conversation, and also if you have five minutes in a strange place anywhere in the world,

“you can sort of, you can have a look around and see what the local birds are doing,”

and what was disappointed when you really, really far away, and you just get larger versions of what you get at home, especially in America, I mean, you get larger versions of everything,

yeah, but it's a lovely thing, and I sort of, I'm always interested in how different places,

how different, like so for instance, blue jays are, well, it's the name of the baseball team in Toronto, but they're considered a nuisance in New York, yeah, yeah, not that, not that, not that, not the baseball team, they employ hawks to deal with blue jays in New York, too bad, yeah, and they're bloody noisy, they're really noisy, there's loads of song about birds in there,

“you know, there's a blue bird, there's a blue chair, I'm not very good on birds songs and that,”

I've been using the old Merlin app, it's really amazing, because I've had a couple of apps, but that one's, it's incredible, it can take a, you know, just be in a bit of a sound nerd, and Hannah, all the pre-share this who's producing your program, it can read away, like a three-second long wave, and it can pull four species out in three seconds, if they're also in it once, it's amazing how it separates up the wave and how it recognises if there was this this

cry that the app couldn't get, couldn't recognize, like it was a descending, I won't do a very good impression of it, but I'll give it a go, it was like a, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like this, and really loud, almost tropical sound in, and the Merlin app couldn't recognize it, a phone may make Danny who's elbows from a house sound engineer and produces a lot of our stuff, because Danny's a right big brain, he's also got a very deep voice, so his nickname is deep

blue, after the supercomputer, so as I write deep blue, tell us what this is, and he spent all afternoon researching it, and it was a green woodpecker apparently, oh yeah, they do sound a bit like that, we get it here, and it's like a wallpinned kind of, a bit like the flight, the kind of swooping, up and down, and it sounds a bit like the voice, yeah, yeah, it's a wonderful thing, and like that there's a lot of bamboo where we are, so I was wondering what it was, but Danny, Danny

nailed there, it's not being a panda, hey, might have been a panda, could have been, yeah, okay, a panda, hey, have you ever heard an eye-to-dog? no, they sound like Frankie Howard, they got exactly,

they got, oh, the parakeet just sounded like they're always like just in, or you know, they're just

“all like they're always like, "chick-chick" and you know, that's what I get from the parakeet, because they're”

always the same kind of tone going on, and it's full like it's part of their personality, to always send that call. the big garden birdwatch is about more than just one garden, so I'm saying that the microphone's over to a fellow spotter, to see what's happening on their home, too. my name is Chrissia, also known as Sicico in Nature, we'll currently in Raskin Park, right now, it's a really, really clear day in fact, I can see the Sic skyline in the distance as

well, the shard, the London Eye, but you always will somewhere or somehow notice birds, and

whether it's because you're annoyed that people are feeding pigeons, you know, in the city, you're still noticing them, or a pigeons got underground and is commuting with everyone, you know, there's always something around birds in the city too, but then there's really intimate moments, like being in this park, in the morning, whether they're singing, whether they're just speaking to one another, and then also you can get kind of oasis, where it feels like you're almost not in

the city, where you then see chief chaffs, or you see smaller birds, kind of interacting in a different way, but the ferral pigeon is just as important, you know, the ferral pigeon is like the original

my mind begins to focus on the smaller things, because it changes the awareness of myself,

“I think that's the big connection there, I think not everyone speaks about, it's not just the”

book connecting with the natural world around us, but what is that doing within us? I'm looking at things in an amazement and all that, how is that even happening, like, for instance, that log just there, steams coming off of it, like, he would have thought, you know, and then just watching the birds, are they just flying around, you know, there's two, three of them, they're interacting, and they're happy they're seeing in parakeets, also shouting from over there, but there is also planes,

there's quite a few inside, so this is definitely your flight pathway also, so it's quite

interesting, the different things taking flight in the space, and yes, it's beautiful, you know,

you can see birds wherever you are, and even in tower blocks, you actually have a better advice of seeing more birds because you're higher up, actually, so I feel like no matter where you are or what type of house you live in, or facilities, even if you have a balcony too, loads of birds love to purchase on balconies, so I feel like everyone's got a unique perspective, it's equally important because it's part of a bigger picture, even if you're at your window

and you don't have a balcony, you're able to see so much, and you can grab a pair of blockers and have your own bird watching session from your window, you know, like that's just so unique, like with a cup of tea, and in your pajamas, did it how cozy that is, you know, that's beautiful, the more that we do that is the more that we'll start to also be in a different mindset as well, actually, we'll start to appreciate more of the little things and take a moment to just breathe,

“I think that's a big one as well, you know, living in the city and all the hustle and bustle, just building”

that relationship will notice in birds, changes that. This is part of my garden, and this is like more caniferous, you can see with pine trees, and planted quite a lot of stuff here, you know, I've done a lot of native trees, and, you know, can either a few birds, like I said, I'm not that great, it's identifying the chirping bit to I'm learning, like, you know, no black birds in woodpeckers, get green woodpeckers here and they're

a very distinctive sound, and, of course, you get the magpies and jack doors and crows and stuff like that, but, you know, it's great, sometimes, you know, I guess in January, you don't hear a great deal, but you know, when you get to spring, it's like a coffin ever, have sound, and it's great to get get up in a morning, you look forward to getting open, and the sound is all around you. The way that these sounds punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk, punk

the way that these sounds punk, punk, punk, punk, t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t-t- birds. "Jews and sing is a sound artist and a nature beat boxer." So a little bit about the sound, so this little, you spends his life exploring the relationship between yours and the wild for audio.

"It's joining and it's every fort now I don't get birding." And I thought we'd start with the sparrows, one of the most spotted birds in the big garden bird watch. "I feel like what I do is that I try and practice to tune myself to the natural world."

So sparrows are find really interesting because it's so weird describing this to somebody else. They like walnuts with beaks.

“So sparrows are our birds that I grew up with and I can remember that they were always”

in groups and if you saw one, it was always going to be a tap by a pigeon and it was like

a tiny bird that seems to always be on edge and a where, but it's not selfish because it's telling others as well about it, it's telling its people that listen, there's

So it's quite a sharing bird because their cause are so distinct, you know, when they're

in groups. I mean like here now in Devon, in different parts of Devon that I go, especially hedgerows, they are so loud, it's unbelievable and they don't care, they're like here we are, we're doing this thing and we are here and I love that, I love the feeling of we are here in such a tiny bird because sometimes it feels like we say we've rubbed in for instance,

it's kind of I am here and you know, it puffs itself up and it comes and it comes up to you and it's like y'all listen, I'm here, I'm the Robin, where is it feels like we've sparrows, they're a crew, they're a collective, they're a we.

“And I think there's something really beautiful about that.”

We live such an individual life of like look at me, this is what I'm doing, this is where I've been, this is what, but actually to observe nature in this kind of collective capacity, there is a relationship. So a little bit about the sound, so this little bit about the sound, that's the kind of river mister, as I hear it and then obviously I think I go into into the world of building these

environments of sparrows which sound like what you can hear the collective. Because it doesn't speak the same language that you speak, it's kind of like a whole other world that is open up to interpretation. To a sparrow, Francis Leffridge, because you have no fear to mingle wings with doors of greater part, so like me, with song, I single your sweet impudence of art, and when proud

of feathers go away from a hole to leafy shore, you're still come to us from nowhere like gray leaves across the snow, in backwards where art and end go, to your meals you drop down shore, knowing every broken window of the hospitable poor. There is no bird, after harmless, non-sauce sweetly rolled as you, non-sauce common and so charmless, non-avertuous nude as you, but for all your faults, I love you, for you linger

with this still, though the wintry winds reprove you, and this snore is on the hill. I was over here actually, there were red wings the other day, and they just fly over here.

“That's amazing. I love that. I think one of the reasons I like birds so much in particular”

over other things is because they are everywhere, you know, you can be in the middle of the city, middle of the countryside, and there is stuff flying around, much more than people

noticed, and so I really think like the first step is just stopping and looking up and seeing

what's flying around. I think once you start to notice the nature that's around you, that's when you start to know what the regular things are, and what the rare things are, and I really think bird watching boils down to kind of appreciating what's around you, and they're very present. Just going out somewhere, it's comes inside of a park, and then just seeing what's

“around, and then we're following that, and then something else will turn off. I think people”

would be surprised by how many birds you can see in kind of a ten mile radius of your house.

It's always something interesting, I think. Yeah, I think so.

Right, that's all for this first episode. The big garden birdwatch runs this weekend, January 23rd to the 25th. It doesn't matter if you have a massive garden, just a winder box, just give it an hour. So get your tally charts and you're absolutely, and keep that kettle long. Thanks for coming along with us today, and I'll see you in a fortnight birdies. Get birding was produced by Hannah Walker Brown, the executive producer is Jane Gerber.

wherever you get your podcasts.