A leading bird expert has asked Donegal houseowners to let them know if there are no birds in their gardens!
Birdwatch Ireland are about to launch their annual ‘Garden Bird Survey; which will last six weeks from December 1st.
The data compiled will be used to generate statistics which is used to gather useful information on the patterns of Ireland’s bid population.
Last year more than 1,000 homeowners took part in the survey which listed all the birds visiting people’s garden across the country.
And the survey showed that the Robin is still king of Irish gardens with it coming out on top of the survey every year since 2006 with the Blackbird and Blue Tit coming in close behind.
Niall Hatch of Birdwatch Ireland appealed to as many people as possible to take part – even if they never see any bidrs in their gardens.
“A lot of people say to me that they never see birds in their garden and will not take part in the survey.
“But we want to know which gardens in which areas are not attracting birds and find out why. That is the whole idea of the survey so we can research these questions and get answers,” he said.
Mr Hatch urged people to begin to leave out food for birds now that the weather has suddenly turned cold depsite an unusually mild Autumn.
However, he asked them to choose the right food in case they poisoned Ireland’s rich array of garden birds.
“People can lave out peanuts but not salted peanuts as birds don’t like salt.
“Animals fats can be left out as well as various other seeds which can all be purchsed in pet food stores and from Bidrwatch Ireland.
“People shouldn’t leave out things like ric because it is simply too dry for our garden birds and always leave out plenty of water.
“It’s starting to get cold now and people should begin to see a lot more birds coming into their gardens,” he said.
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