This weekend the RSPB will be running its annual Big Garden Birdwatch, a great example of citizen science in support of biodiversity monitoring. No matter where your garden is or how small it might be, if you have time, please do get involved. Even a return of zero birds is useful information because it tells us where birds are not occurring.
As I have for the past couple of years since we moved into this house, I’ll do my hour of watching on Sunday morning from the bedroom window. Hopefully the current cold weather will persist and bring birds into the garden that are normally found out in the wider countryside.
Happy birding!
Prof. Jeff Ollerton - ecological scientist and author 
I am getting worried now because although I returned a zero count the Collared Dove has not gone extinct in Gloucestershire, neither has the Magpie, Greenfinch or Coal Tit, they just didn’t happen to visit in this hour. Maybe they should add to the count option, “regular visitor but not in this survey” just between zero and one.
That would be a good addition, agreed. But I take comfort in the fact that if they weren’t in my garden they were probably;y in someone else’s, and hopefully they did as count too. Individual samples are not necessarily going to be representative of the full data set.