Each year the RSPB asks people to watch the birds in their garden for an hour over the last weekend in January.  My 2012 count was an improvement on last year:

Four blackbirds

Eight sparrows (might have been more but they move so fast I couldn’t count them)

Two blue tits

Two coal tits

Two chaffinches

The robin

The rules did not allow me count the gulls and crows overhead, the oystercatchers and curlews on the football pitch nearby, the wood pigeons on my neighbour’s roof or the skein of geese I saw flying over Asda.  And who am I to offer skewed  data?   Nor was I allowed to include the impressive tally of seven longtailed tits I saw last week.   The rules also state that the tally must be the highest number of birds seen at any one time in the hour, so the fact that the robin bounced back and forth from some other birdy food mother lode (the tart) did not allow me to list him/her as a multiple.