Binoculars At The Ready – Local Care Home Supports Big Garden Birdwatch

Staff and residents at Barchester’s Longueville Court care home in Orton got out their binoculars and bird books to support this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch initiative.

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch is an annual event to try to understand what is happening to our native birds. The idea is to log all the birds you see in your garden, from your window or in your local park in a one hour period any time between January 26th and 28th. In 2023 over half a million people took part and between them they counted 9 million birds. Sadly we have lost over 38 million birds from the UK skies in the last 60 years so it is vital we do all we can to protect our birdlife.

Residents had a brilliant time filling up birdfeeders, at Longueville Court making fat balls to attract the birds before they got started and then looking up the different species in their bird books to make sure they were logging them correctly. They saw Robins, red tail kites, Blue tits and the occasional Parakeets.

General Manager, Krzysztof, said: “Our residents love to watch all the birds in the garden so the Big Garden Birdwatch is right up their street. It’s important to look after our wildlife and help to conserve all the different species. We have really enjoyed taking part, it’s amazing how many birds we saw in just an hour!”

Margaret a resident said: “We have a beautiful garden here and we’re very lucky that we see so many different types of birds. I love all birds but I have an extra soft spot for a robin, you just can’t help but smile when you see one.”