France in Focus

This is the weekend of the annual bird count across the world.

The LPO is asking those of us in France to spend one hour this weekend counting the birds in our garden or at a spot out in the open. The weather looks to be good for most of us so go out and do your bit.

https://www.oiseauxdesjardins.fr/index. ... 27&item=18

Thank you for the reminder exile.

Too random to do a "corner head count", but there was even the beginnings of a dawn chorus today, and I've been hearing a blackbird chirping in the evenings already. Also saw a butterfly and a bumble bee in our little back garden yesterday... Goodness knows how many in the rest of the valley!

I saw this on an fb group called "Dull Men's Club", of someone who did participate - hilarious, so had to share!
"I just did the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. You watch your garden or other patch for one hour, then report how many birds you saw of which species. Here's what I saw: not a single visible living thing entered this frame for the entire time. Normally the place is a veritable aviary. I reported my result anyway.
Please don't chide me for the fallen leaves. I think they are good for wildlife (except for today).
Size 7 UK, owns three lawnmowers but not sure why."

It's not easy to do. I look at the different species but of course they won't all appear at the same time on the same day. The count also depends on the time of day, whether you tempt the little beasties with seeds etc.

I stopped raking up leaves years ago - the worms pull them into the ground (in this case I prefer to let nature take its course !)

My cousin is doing it in the UK but said it’s hard to choose which hour as different species at different times

The whole point is that over the various submissions most of the day will be covered. There is a danger in this that if we all choose an "interesting" hour, we will under report the common birds with the dire warnings of how the number of sparrows (other common birds are available) has fallen x%, when in fact there has be no substantial change.