Monthly Bird Count

Birds, Flora & Fauna

The seasons

The winter months are often cold first thing, yet are good for visibility – with no leaves on the trees. Spring is full of birdsong from our resident bird population and nest building and feeding of young. We have a number of thick hedges that provide cover despite the high foot fall – commuters walking between tube and hospital or home, and good cover from the high population of squirrels always ready for an egg or two. August becomes the quiet month when bird song drops to its lowest, and autumn the birds are hopefully building up strength for winter. We often see wood pigeons and others gorging on berries. Seasonal visitors include the large flocks of redwing (with fieldfare intermingled) that we have had visit in recent years around the January/February time, the swifts overhead from May until end of July and the flocks of starlings when the areas of long grass begin to set seed.

Common sightings

There is a group of birds that we always see and who hold territory. This includes crows, blue tits, great tits, Blue tits, robins, wrens, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, magpies, dunnocks, goldfinches, coal tits, blackbirds, ring necked parakeets, starlings. We often see jays, long tailed tits, greater spotted woodpeckers and swifts in summer. Less often we record chaffinches, greenfinches, mistle thrushes, song thrushes, goldcrests, and fieldfares amongst the redwings in winter. 

Overhead

Above us there are often gulls and cormorants from the nearby Thames, and the occasional sparrow hawk or kestrel, but we don’t count these. The most spectacular of the birds of prey are our two Peregrine falcons who breed on a high balcony of Charing Cross hospital overlooking the cemetery. We often see them perched on top of what look like down pipes, watching us as we record them.

How the count is done

We carry out the bird count at the same time of day once a month, and walk the same course – clockwise around the perimeter starting from the north gate. It usually takes 90 minutes to 2 hours. 

Certain species are harder to record as they move around a great deal. We make an educated guess of who we have counted already, sometimes going by how many we can see at any given time. This tends to include crows, wood pigeons, feral pigeons, redwings, goldfinches and long tailed tits. 

We find the birds often by sound, picking up song and then stopping and looking carefully for the bird we expect to see. 

Spotting movement, even in leafy trees, is important.

We have built up local knowledge of what locations and habitats different species favour – starlings in the grass, blackbirds on the ground under the hedges, wood pigeons in the big trees or in the grass, smaller birds in the shrub and hedges, robins begging to be seen! We also expect to see many of the smaller birds moving to and from birdfeeders in neighbouring gardens over the wall. We don’t record if not sure, but we do make a note of those heard but not seen.

We make a note of certain behaviours, when a bird is mobbed, behaviour when predators are about, when nesting material or food is being gathered. We also record numbers of fledglings and juveniles, and male or female when known.

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