Nature News from RSPB Scotland

EPISODE 29 BIG GARDEN BIRDWATCH 2024

• RSPB Scotland

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It's that time of year again! Big Garden Birdwatch is here. Stephen and Dan Snowdon from RSPB Scotland's Lochwinnoch nature reserve explain how to take part. There are also tips on how to work out what you're seeing out there.

Stephen also travels to Dundee to meet staff and volunteers involved in inspirational work building connections with nature for people living in the city.

More about Big Garden Birdwatch here https://t.co/tC0YFBrsRr

Find out more about our work in Dundee Winter Wildlife in Dundee - Scottish Nature Notes - Our work - The RSPB Community

Stephen Magee:

Welcome to Nature News from RSPB Scotland. I'm Stephen Magee and this is a podcast for anyone who loves nature. In this episode we're going to focus on the Big Garden Birdwatch. We'll let you know how you can take part and explore a little about how you can work out which birds you're seeing. There's also an update on some inspirational work RSPB Scotland is doing, helping to connect people with nature in an urban environment. So have a listen and don't forget to leave us a review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Hope Busak:

This is Nature News from RSPB Scotland.

Stephen Magee:

Hello, welcome to Loch innoch Nature Reserve. It is, I think, hopefully just the tail end of Storm Isha, still pretty windy, pretty blowy. I'm looking out, I'm with Dan the warden. Hello, dan, hello. We have taken shelter in one of the hides because it is still very blowy and pretty wet today. I'm looking out at just like so much water on the reserve because, like I've been here at other times, and these are just little pools, but in front of us it's just an expanse of water, just now.

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah, there's a huge amount of water at the moment. The river is flooded over. Both of the lochs have gone over the top of the bunds surrounding them, so it's like almost like one big loch at the moment.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, but I mean, that's you know, that's what these kind of like wetlands are meant to do, right? They're carrying a whole bunch of water and also we can see, like in front of us is a family of Whooper Swans. There's, you know, ducks and swans and all kinds of stuff enjoying this wetland, right, yeah?

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah, it wants to be a seasonal wetland, and it's certainly doing that at the moment. Wildfowl are taking real advantage of it too.

Stephen Magee:

Right, much as we love Wildfowl, we are not here today primarily to talk about that. We are here because it is that time of year again, it's Big Garden Birdwatch. Right, it's January. And what I wanted to do in the podcast was like do a couple of things. One is like use some of Dan's experience and knowledge, right, and maybe you know, if you're relatively new to doing a Big Garden Birdwatch or maybe even new, like you know, looking at birds and trying to work out what they are, you know, give you some hints and tips to help with that. And then the other thing we're going to talk about later on the podcast is some stuff specifically about, like, if you live in a city right, an urban environment not a beautiful rural landscape like this, but a beautiful urban landscape what some of the challenges are and also what some of the things you can do to get involved in Big Garden Birdwatch are.

Stephen Magee:

But here, Dan, right, Big Garden Birdwatch is relatively straightforward, right, it is. You pick an hour sometime in the. ou know, the three days that are coming up for Big Garden Birdwatch. You sit yourself down somewhere and you count the birds. ou see, t's not things that fly over, it's only things that land, right? So there's no cheating for that. And it's counting up the most individuals from a species you see at one time, right? But it's just a nice thing even just to take an hour out of your day and do something like that, yeah, fantastic.

Dan Snowdon:

It's kind of an excuse to do it really, the fact that you're doing the Big Garden Birdwatch I've done it before and I've found that I wouldn't normally take an hour to just stare into my garden and see what's there and it's actually it's a really pleasant, relaxing, enjoyable thing to do.

Stephen Magee:

And we should be clear. You can do it in your garden, you can do it from your window. If you can see a green space or even an urban space in your window, you could come to somewhere. ike you know, l, c go o any green space near you and do it? The key thing is plonk yourself down and have a crack at it. Now I want you to do something difficult, dan, right, I want you to imagine that you don't know anything about identifying birds, right? O Cleanse your mind with all that stuff, right? How do you go about? hat are the basics of trying to wor?

Dan Snowdon:

So it can be really daunting if you're you know you're looking out your window and you see a bird, you don't know what it's called. You perhaps don't know what to look for in order to find out what it's called and you might think, oh, there's hundreds of different kinds of birds. How on earth am I going to work out what this is? I wouldn't even know how to describe this to someone, so I used to do o a birding for beginners course here and I used to break it down into three really key things to start with. So color, size and shape. colour

Angela Gillies:

.

Dan Snowdon:

So colour might be the overall colour of the bird. Is it mostly brown? Is it mostly black? Is it mostly even yellow? You know Size if you compare it to something that you know. So if you know how big a Swan is, you can compare it to that. If you know how big a Sparrow is, you could compare it to. T Shape would be the overall shape. So it might have some really obvious feature like a really long neck or a really long tail, or it might have a really you know uniquely shaped bill beak. Look out for standout features and that will really help you to work out what the bird is when you then go on to look in a book or look on the internet or maybe talk to someone.

Stephen Magee:

And I should say I'll put links to them in the show notes. But there are some really straightforward resources right for helping you ID the most common things that you might see in your garden in the UK. f you're doing a Big Garden Birdwatch, I'll make sure that's there. But for me it's like anything else. It can seem quite intimidating at first.

Stephen Magee:

I remember getting my first bird book right when I was a kid and making the mistake of reading the introduction before I did anything else you know, and thinking that I needed to learn what the supercilium of a bird was before you know, which was completely the wrong way to go about it right. And then I joined my local the Young Ornithologist Club, as it was called at the time right, and started hanging around with adults who were helping and like and who knew a lot about birds and what became quickly apparent was was the easiest way to do it is learn one and then kind of move on to one. hat's a bit like that, essentially, and that's that's the way it works. It's like, once you know a House Sparrow, it's like all right, okay, well, you know Tree Sparrow. ell, it's kind of like a House Sparrow, like already know a House Sparrow, but it's got this one different thing or these two different things about it. It's kind of like once you fix some basics in your head, it's actually easy to make progress.

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah, I'd really agree with that. So you know, learn the birds that you see all the time, get really familiar with them and then, for example, if you see Chaffinches in your garden a lot, you get really familiar with Chaffinches and then you go for a walk somewhere and see a different type of finch, you will recognise some of the features that are like a Chaffinch.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, so you're like like a big thick bill. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah like you know the kind of the o the wings and those kind of things, and then move on from that right.

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah, or it could be the behaviour that they're displaying.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, of course.

Dan Snowdon:

But you might think, ah right, that's a bit like a Chaffinch, but there's something different. But I'm gonna. I think that's another kind of finch, and then you can go away and look at the finches, for example.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah and like for like going back to first tax again for people like, what might help you do that is there's loads of online resources, there's apps and other things, but, you know, undefined o any secondhand bookshop and you will find a bunch of, like you know, bird books. You know that. You know the big bird books, the little bird books and the way they tend to be organised is by families of birds, right? So it's exactly what you're saying, which is, if you see something that looks a bit like a Chaffinch that you know, but it's kind of different look up the finches first and see where it is and all that kind of stuff. One thing I wondered on one level, sitting just looking out your window, enjoying whatever birds, that and anything else you might see in other wildlife you might see in your garden is like a virtue of itself. Right, there's nothing wrong with that, but is there something? Does it become more rewarding?

Dan Snowdon:

I think so. Yes, I mean, it's absolutely fine to just look out the window and enjoy the birds and the wildlife without knowing what they're called. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it's definitely rewarding, I think, to even just learn the name of something and it gives you a little bit of a connection to it. So if you go into your park and you go ah, that's a challenge, I've just learned Chaffinch. You know you get a buzz of, you know you've learned something about it. You maybe learned something about ou its behaviour. And then, as you go on learning more birds, you learn more about what they do, their habitat needs, how many there are. It's just I don't know why exactly, but it does give you a feeling of connection, knowing, being able to put a label on something.

Stephen Magee:

And it's the kind of thing that might even drive you to stay outside, even as the rain sheets in over the loc h it t just now. Now, look, this is a fantastic location we're in for all kinds of birds and other wildlife, but a lot of people live in cities, and RSPB Scotland is currently doing a lot of really interesting work in Dundee, so I hid headed i there to find out more. So I've just arrived in the park in Dundee where I'm going to be meeting up with a couple of people who work for us up here, but I had to stop on my way in because there's a tree here completely full of Starlings. S I think it must have. Thi Big Garden Birdwatch kind of head on. I'd say 3 30-od o s the most I've seen at any one time, so that's what I'd be counting. I just the sound of them. It's like electronic kind of popping and whistling and it's absolutely stunning, and all in a very urban environment. Right, let's go see if I can find my new friend friends

Dan Snowdon:

Right.

Stephen Magee:

I've dragged myself away from the Starlings and I'm here with Hope and Angela, who both work for us in Dundee. Hello, h and we are in Hilltown Park, appropriately named. I can testify because I walked up from town.

Hope Busak:

No, big hill.

Stephen Magee:

It's a really steep hill, right, but it's like this is without being without doing it down right. This is a normal urban park, right. It's got swings in it and some other play stuff. It's got some wee grassy green bits, it's got some trees, it's got a ton of Starlings. But this is kind of like your standa standard , a right.

Hope Busak:

Yeah, absolutely, and there's quite a few of these dotted around Dundee, but this is my local park, so it's the one that me and my daughter come to the most.

Stephen Magee:

Excellent, and this is the kind of place right that people could come and do a because a lot of people don't have access to a garden, what kind of things might you see here?

Hope Busak:

Oh gosh, I think Angela's going to be the best one to answer that.

Angela Gillies:

Starlings, have seen Coal t ts, Blue b tits Tits, lots of tits species, actually Magpies Wood , wood w of Wood Pigeons i i Wood w But yeah, there's a whole variety here on your doorstep. Really, you don't have to come too far to spot a lot of birds Bird the for the b watch.

Stephen Magee:

And I actually think one of the nice things about doing because we used to for a wee bit when my kids were little we didn't s a garden right o were doing the Big Garden Birdwatch of Birdwatc n things about a park is if you there's a wee bit, you could sit on down there right and you'd have a field of view that's absolutely massive right and your chances. If you're into f numbers game, you know if you want to meet your big make bird Big, Garden look Bird good, this is the kind of place where you could get like some really good numbers.

Hope Busak:

Oh yeah, absolutely. And even just standing here, I've spoken about this park to quite a few people this week. The sound of the birdsong is actually quite deafening, in a good way sometimes. Just the amount that you can see and the amount that you can hear is phenomenal. And you can see as well which happens a lot in these urban park areas. It's surrounded by houses, so if it's a cold day like today, it's a bit chilly and you're not quite wanting to get out and about. You can just sit at your window and see what you can see from there as well.

Angela Gillies:

Yeah, it's good as well. Some people can't get out of their homes because of mobility issues or mental health problems, so if they can look out onto a park like this, you can sit at the window and do the Big Garden Bird watch as well, so that's really good.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, but it's worth talking about that. I see there are some of the things that people maybe think are barriers not just to taking part in the Big Garden Bird watch but to engage them in nature more generally. But actually, with the right kind of support, are things that people can overcome.

Angela Gillies:

I think what I find people seem to believe they should be big experts and know all the birds off by heart straight away, but actually know a simple guide like some of the guides on the RSPB website are really good. Patients that I've worked with have really kind of taken to them and learned quite a lot just from like a one page A4 sheet and they can go out themselves and it's easy to spot.

Stephen Magee:

I think that's just one of the things that people forget is that everybody even like some of the amazing burders that I've met since I started working at RSPB, like people who know everything, birders started somewhere right Like it's not like people are born like going, like knowing the difference between a barter like and a black-tailed god, but right people, you know it's not a new knowledge, Bar-tailed everybody learns.

Stephen Magee:

But getting started can be hard, right, it can be intimidating and feel a bit maybe excluding.

Hope Busak:

And I'm in that position myself now. So I'm, you know, project manager for the Wild Dundee project here. But I myself am new to the world of birds and I might recognise a few bits and bobs. I mean today, when we were up at Loch Leven this morning, angela and Daniel were pointing things out to me and saying, oh, this is that and this. And it's amazing for me.

Hope Busak:

And what we're finding, particularly in Dundee is, I mean, Angela's doing a fantastic job of going out to different settings and that look at recovery in the city and working with community garden outreach officers or staff in hospitals and saying to them, hey, you know, there's one thing you can spot and they're talking to their service users and their visitors to it and it's spreading out that way. And I hope Angela doesn't mind me saying we had some fantastic feedback from one of the community garden outreach officers who said that since talking to Angela and just spending a couple of hours with her in a week, she's grown her confidence so much that she's now going to do a Big Garden Bird watch in her community garden and with her family over the weekend. These little things it's. t might feel like a big jump to go from not knowing anything about birds to taking part in the Big Garden Bird watch, but actually it's a really good way into it and just an exciting thing to do as a group or as an individual.

Stephen Magee:

Look, listen, we should talk a little bit about what you're doing here in Dundee. Just really briefly, like tell me a bit about the project and what you're up to.

Hope Busak:

Yeah, so the Wild Dundee project is looking at ways that we can really help get people back out into their urban green spaces, not just to have a jolly around the park although that is a big part of it, to be honest but giving them things that they can do for meaningful engagement that they can take back. hey can do again,. building skills in nature and help just reminding people what it's like to be out in nature and being about wildlife and all that. It's really fun.

Stephen Magee:

Well, part of that is working and we've already mentioned it, we'll talk a bit more in a minute is working with people in recovery, and I had the chance to go and meet Mark Parsons, who is, like, really interesting in a range of ways. A, he is, you know, a volunteer in his local community. B, he's a long-term RSPB member and an RSPB fellow, and he's also working with us on a project that is focused on recovery, and so I went to meet him on his patch and find out a bit more about it. Right, there is a dusting of snow on the ground. It's still pretty wintery. I am at the friday, which is in Lochee in Dundee, and I'm with Mark Parsons. Mark, why are we standing in the grounds of a former monastery?

Mark Parsons:

Well, a few things have come together. I am a volunteer here with a project called Reconnection Project, which is a charity which tries to help guys who have entered recovery. Hopefully they've got past that anarchic initial stage.

Stephen Magee:

And this is recovery from addiction.

Mark Parsons:

Addiction of either drugs or alcohol men , m women women, the idea is that we Stand stand them and support them in those early stages when they're restructuring, rethinking their lives. So you know, stopping taking drugs or alcohol or you know being on medication is just a first step and it's not an easy step and it's not an easy thing to maintain. There's significant levels of relapse, so people need support. So basically, some of the guys that started this project thought look, you know we've been through that, let's stand by these people and help them to get through and continue their recovery. So we offer things like woodwork. You know there's general fellowship, you know of being with guys

Mark Parsons:

Standing by people, being friendly to them, providing advice, talking to them, trying to give them some self-esteem, some self-belief, and renew their capacity to get on their feet and have confidence to live life. So that's basically how I got into it. I do a bit of the gardening. The other part of me, though, is that I've been a member and fellow of the RSPB since the late 80s, I'd say.

Mark Parsons:

That's an impressive time yeah yeah, it's funny because when I meet some of the workers that have been coming and working with us here, they're, all you know, far younger than my membership. So, yeah, so I've been in the RSPB for years. It's been there and I go to reserves and I participate in birdwatching on my holidays. But I just thought I read somewhere that they were looking to have engagement with communities and with community type services and they were looking to have a good relationship with the community and with the community services in cities and I think Dundee was one of the ones that was mentioned.

Mark Parsons:

So I thought you know there's probably something we can do together. So I made contact and after a while we had some really good contacts. Yeah Yeah Yeah, this is rather a nice green space right in the middle of the city, in the poorest.

Stephen Magee:

It is beautiful, just to explain it for people. I mean, it is essentially a bit of land attached to a series of buildings which used to be a monastery.

Stephen Magee:

There is still a church here and that does all kinds of community stuff as well. But the green space really is a mixture of things. I mean there's like the steepest pitched football pitch I've ever seen in my life. There's trees, like a mix of like planted stuff, but also some like. here are some native stuff here. There's a couple of lawns, there's some terraces and stuff. There's a brand new feeding station that you've put in which is fantastic, J ut it's a green space in the centre of the city in the middle of Loughy right.

Stephen Magee:

It's full of potential.

Mark Parsons:

Well, that's it, the guys from the RSPB. When you hen here and you think this is in the poorest, you know it's a green site in one of the poorest, most deprived areas of Dundee and the support that we're getting from the RSPB is just absolutely amazing. You know, we've got two young ladies who come along who are just full of imagination and ideas and great. I love it.

Stephen Magee:

Now other thing about you like you've got a bunch of hats on right. So you know you're an RSPB member long time and fellow. You're working, obviously volunteering here, but also your professional background right.

Stephen Magee:

So you've been dealing with, amongst other things in your professional career. You've been dealing with addiction, you know, in a professional capacity, right. What is it you think that this kind of thing brings to? ecovery that's different to maybe what you would have done, or other people who are health professionals in the what, for better or worse, you might call like the mainstream NHS, right? What is it that this kind of thing gives people potentially?

Mark Parsons:

A significant proportion of people who have addiction issues have had chaotic lifestyles and also very troubled life histories. What these sites bring is almost like an oasis in their life.

Stephen Magee:

It's literally a sanctuary right.

Mark Parsons:

Yeah, it's a sanctuary, so there is okay, we can hear the road, but you can't see the road. You see trees, you see bushes and birds and, bearing in mind where it is, this is a site where you can just sit down and escape. So that's the first thing. So it's a calming environment. The second thing is that there's you'll have heard of the concept of mindfulness, this idea of putting things to one side and being able to focus on other things, single things, and there's a great opportunity here if you're bird watching or just wandering around.

Stephen Magee:

Or just being in a green space. I mean, it's even just being in focusing, Like we had a walk around a little bit around the back there where there's a path through some of these trees and the way the light was coming through the trees, because it's a winter, it's 11 o'clock in. January right, so the light's slanted still. And I could quite happily have just sat there for half an hour and just been part of that. It was lovely.

Mark Parsons:

Yeah, so there's that, but then there's other opportunities for the guys to actually do some of the work, to participate in this.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah.

Mark Parsons:

The making of the feeding station. We've got some bird boxes that we've just put up. We've put up four Blue Tits and tits, especially at this moment in time, but we're looking to put others in more, the open ones for Robins and things like that. So there's a woodwork element of it and some of these guys you know I was very privileged as a child. My dad was interested in woodwork and we had a garage and I could just go in and cut wood and da da, da.

Mark Parsons:

But giving these guys the opportunity to make things and then see those things being put into the garden as well, and also to participate in the clearing. So it's just an opportunity to give us a chance to be able to communicate, to get that talk where they can feel this person's interested in me. They're talking to me, you know, they're spending time with me and that is a value to a significant value to these individuals who carry with them a lot of society's negativity. So just getting by the side of them and saying, look, you've got an illness and we want to help you with that, rather than being in a <div class="MiCl6d" style="margin-bottom:0;line-height:normal"><div class="JgzqYd RES9jf xWMiCc"><span data-dobid="hdw"> condemnator</span></div></div> place, what's What's like for you?

Stephen Magee:

and I'm not going to be rude here, but you know you recently retired, right, okay, at this point in your life, to be bringing together, you know, these aspects of your professional life, your roles of volunteer in the community, your personal engagement with nature and birds and birding to bring all those things together, that must be very satisfying.

Mark Parsons:

Well, that is exactly the benefit that I'm getting, especially now with the RSPB here. I mean I'm also interested in green politics, so all in the environment as well, so it's bringing a lot of diverse issues together. But the other thing is it makes you meet people you know. Retirement can be a good time, but it can be a lonely time especially.

Mark Parsons:

you know I worked in the NHS and I was surrounded by people, so when I'm with the guys and also my colleagues here, you know it's contact, it's conversations, which I benefit from as well.

Mark Parsons:

It's not, you know, when you're able to have and develop relationships with people as a volunteer, I wouldn't say it's a selfish element, but it is an element of it that you are gaining, you know, a positive life experience as well. So, yeah, there's a lot of value to be gained, and bringing them together is just well, what's the word? It's fantastic, yeah, it's fantastic.

Stephen Magee:

Well listen, I suspect this is not the last we'll be hearing right, we've got work here at the Friary and we'll be following what happens in. Dundee and the podcast i lsewhere on RSPB Scotland's social channels as well, but thanks for showing me around it's beautiful And thank you for coming along.

Mark Parsons:

Thank you, and thank you to the RSPB. Thank you.

Stephen Magee:

I trus that Hop Hope Angeles, , years burning now because Mark was very complimentary about you two, but with good reason, I'm sure. So you chant when to t. One ne the things that really shocked struck was like this idea that he's bringing to bear all these different experiences but he thinks there's a lot of potential in what he's doing right. He thinks there's a lot of room for growth. Like you're working in the field of nature and recovery, what do you think it is that nature can bring to the picture? What role does nature have to play?

Angela Gillies:

I think really, anywhere you live, nature is accessible if you notice there and you have some support to get out into it, even just spending a couple of minutes. You don't have to spend hours in nature as well, just to feel better and to feel like your mental health's been restored. I mean, just listening here to the birds makes you feel calm much better. So, yeah, there's so much that we could do out in nature and I think even just small little areas like this a little improvement that you hang out a bird feeder you can attract a lot of wildlife to that and just simple little things. There's a lot of potential that can start from little steps like that. It's just making people aware of what they can do and how they can get out there.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, because that is the crucial thing is, isn't it? It's making people aware of it. We've already said like sometimes people can think like they need to be an expert. You don't need to be an expert, but the other crucial thing is people need green space right, and that's one of the things we are increasingly short of and that the RSPB is really concerned about. Even the i Dundee, which actually has a lot of parks, it is under pressure here. Do you find that that's one of the challenges that people are encountering here?

Hope Busak:

I think so. Yeah, and you've picked up perfectly there that there is so much green space in Dundee and one of the projects we're doing is looking at a really small area of the city and picking up on where the green spaces are. And actually in this area we're in sort of walking around a half an hour walk there are 10 to 15 untapped green spaces that could be used for more purpose and more meaning?

Stephen Magee:

What is an untapped green space? Is that like just little bits in, like in the middle of an estate where there's like a square of green? What kind of things is it?

Hope Busak:

Yeah, it's little little patches of grass or little bits of overgrown or underloved areas which in themselves can be fantastic for wildlife, but it's getting people to appreciate it a little bit more and certainly in the recovery settings where Angela's working so many of these spaces back in the day, nature would be a huge part of that. Whether people really understood why they were putting gardens in hospitals and things like that, you know, I don't know, but more and more the need to build and have space for people is more pressured, I suppose, and we're trying to take that a little bit of a step back and say let's look at these gardens, let's look at these green spaces and find out the best ways that we can use them not only to recover the nature and the wildlife and all that around us in these green spaces, but make them recovered in a way that the people in these spaces can use them for therapies and integrate it into their toolkit for recovery.

Stephen Magee:

In a way, do you think that we are trying to rebuild some things here that used to be much more in the rhythm of people's lives? Because even if you stayed like in a place like Dundee or some of the towns round here in the past 20-30 years ago, even your lifestyle might have taken you out into the countryside more. You might have gone like berry picking, or you might have had like an uncle who was fishing or you might have all of these. Those connections have been ground away to some extent.

Angela Gillies:

Yeah, I think so. I think building an understanding of the pressures that people have now on their lives a lot of people are time poor, not just financially p o,, but they're time poor because they're working so many hours and kind of understanding that and how we can design green spaces or access to green spaces around that is really important as well, because people do use green spaces a little bit differently maybe than in the past, and I think having an understanding of that and how we can build them that is important too. And it's difficult because people do tend to work further away from their homes now, so you don't have so much time to spend in the local parks. But it's just trying to help people reconnect to local green spaces, I think. And spending more quality time in green spaces doesn't have to be hours and hours and that can just be a couple of minutes, even on the way to work.

Stephen Magee:

Absolutely. But anyway, if you have a park near you, a green space, anything like that, Big Garden, Bird atch is the perfect time to re-engage with that and there's a structure there to do it and a way to do it or stick all the stuff in the show notes. But thank you guys for putting up with i. t has now got baltic.

Mark Parsons:

It's pretty new.

Stephen Magee:

It has, it's got really baltic.

Hope Busak:

So thank you very much for doing that, thank you, thank you, yeah, thank you so much.

Stephen Magee:

That wor Dundee Dundee is really fascinating and be sure, if you keep, you know, if you subscribe to the podcast, you will hear more about it in the future. Right, if anything, it's got darker and certainly wetter Lochwinnoch in Loughwennock, but we're in the hide and we are fine. And the other thing about Big Garden Bird Watch, right, I wanted to talk about is obviously what hopefully what people get out of it is that sense of connection and like a fun thing to do, but what we get out of it as the RSPB is actual science. What do we get out of Big Garden Bird Watch?

Dan Snowdon:

Well, in short, it's. I think it's the biggest survey that happens in the UK of wildlife and it gives us a really amazing insight into what people are seeing in their gardens right across the country, and you can't underestimate the importance of that. So over time, the many years this survey has been going on, it's enabled us to track many different species, whether the numbers are going up some of them are going up and whether the numbers are going down, which some of them unfortunately are. And once you've got those numbers over time, then you can look to try and work out why that might be happening and maybe what we can do about it, Because it is really interesting to me.

Stephen Magee:

Obviously, a lot of the science that RSPB does, or that the RSPB works with partners on, is what I suppose, as a layperson, I would think of like high-end, pointy-headed science. Right, it's like it's a really high ranking academics out in the field doing complex field work, all that kind of stuff over a huge period of time. The virtue of this one is the scale of it and also the geographical coverage of it. But the other really important thing and this is a really important thing about when you put your answers down, quite often people will say I didn't feel that great about it because I didn't see that much. Recording the absence of things is just as important, if not possibly in some circumstances more important than recording the presence of things.

Dan Snowdon:

There are certainly instances of, for example, people not recording things, and by people I mean scientists, organisations, everyone not recording really common species because they're not paying attention to them and not noticing that they're disappearing.

Stephen Magee:

I think House Sparrow is one of the examples of that, because there's huge declines in House Sparrow in the UK right. One of the ways we know that is the Big Garden Birdwatch. Yeah.

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah, exactly so it's really important to note when things are not there. Sounds slightly weird, but it is really important. That's sometimes what gives us an indicator that something's wrong.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, and to be clear, when you're in Big Garde means is G Birdwatch means, Birdwatch jus i fill in what you see and don't worry if you don't see some of the things that you might have thought you were going to see or some of the things that other people are going to see. All that information is important to us. Thinking about it from your point of view and going back to when you were talking about doing budding birding for beginners right, what is it like helping people, seeing people take those first steps and presumably you've got people here who've started off there and you've been able to see them develop more of an interest in birds and stuff that must be really rewarding.

Dan Snowdon:

It is. Yeah, it's really, really rewarding. We've got some people who started coming to those courses and now here regular birders, as we call them years later. It's really nice kind of it puts you in touch with your own learning process. I find when I was growing up I had my grandad who was a really keen bird watcher and he used to take me out telling me all the common birds and I thought he was this font of incredible wisdom and I remember the excitement of learning and finding things out and it's really nice being able to go back and share that with new people now. And one of the reasons the RSPB is here is to try and connect people with wildlife and nature. It's one of our ambitions is to get as many people engaging with wildlife as possible and being able to do that, seeing people's face light up as they've looked at something in the presentation and then we go out onto the reserve and they see that bird in the flesh and they can put a name to it it's just great.

Stephen Magee:

Yeah, I think for me and linking it back to th i Bi Bird Big G Bird bird what watch, what we're talking about today is, if you try it and you just enjoy doing that one thing, that is absolutely great, that is brilliant. If it sparks something in you and you want to pursue that, and you can pursue it and you can find a community of people, like local RSPB groups or anywhere else, that can help you explore that passion and develop it and develop that knowledge you know, and that's potentially something that could be with you for life and could have real value. Either way, the important thing from our point of view is please do take part in the big bird watch. Right? I think the sun's actually coming out over there. It's looking alright.

Dan Snowdon:

Yeah.

Stephen Magee:

I'm feeling hopeful. Right as I say, I will put all the information about the big bird watch and also some stuff about some of those issues about urban birding and stuff we were talking about in Dundee into the show notes. Dan, thank you very much for making the time down here at Loch Winneth, as ever. Let us know what you think about the podcast or if there's any issues you want us to cover. T p.. r. scotlandrspbloguk, or have a look at our Twitter handle at RSPB Scotland and please do subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a review, because it helps people find us in the podcast jungle. And as the sun comes out properly and it Whooper illuminates Swans the pooper swans, we're now going over to hide in the reeds and the next film is goodbye from me and goodbye from Dan and thank you very much for listening.