Winterbourne’s feathered friends

A big thank you to everyone who joined us for the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch (26 – 28 January 2024). We’re delighted to share that you helped us spot 386 individual birds across the birdwatch weekend – a whopping 184% increase from last year – and a total of 25 different species.

The jackdaw swooped in to take the top spot, with an amazing 160 of them spotted together, roosting in our trees. Coots, Canada geese and black-headed gulls also flocked to us in double digits – and we even had a very special visitor: a fire crest. There are only around 2,000 of these tiny birds in the UK, and their range rarely overlaps with the Midlands, so to see one was a real treat.

The count also indicated that Winterbourne is home to many corvids – all five of the most common crows were spotted – and that we have a strong invertebrate populate, as indicated by the presence of a cast of insectivorous birds: wrens, robins, dunnocks, and blue, great and long-tailed tits.

Here’s a full breakdown of what we – staff and visitors – saw.