Big Garden Birdwatch weekend has just been, and many of you will have spent your hour counting how many birds, and of which species, came to visit your gardens. I too had refilled the feeders with seeds a few days before and was sitting in my living room hide with pencil and paper, ready to tick off what I’d see. The information collected across the country every year is an important base for our understanding how different bird species are doing.
First into my garden were two robins who landed among the currant bushes, then flew into the apple tree and onwards to the more lavish food in the next garden. Almost simultaneously, a pair of blackbirds arrived, also interested to see what was available between the leaves, twigs and rotting fruit on the ground. I didn’t have to wait long for our regular visitors to the walnut tree, a clattering of jackdaws.
One of my favourites is the house sparrow. For the twenty years I lived in Rachub, I had sparrows for company every morning. There were two or three nests under the roof that were repaired and reused every year. Without exception, I was awoken by their happy chirping welcoming a new day.
After I moved, I was glad to discover that a small quarrel of sparrows had made their home in the hedge that grows on a wall in front of the house, and I watch them in their daily comings and goings from my bedroom window. There is something rather frantic about their chattering, and in that respect they fit well into the soundscape of Bethesda with its quarry, the A5 and the big wire of ZIP world.
There is a clue in their names, passer domesticus in Latin, house sparrow in English, or aderyn y to (bird of the roof) in Cymraeg, that they enjoy the company of people, and though common, it is sad to say that these little sociable birds are getting rarer across Britain. They are now on the list of conservation concern in Cymru, but maybe not in Rachub!
To see more detailed information about birds in Cymraeg, have a look at ‘Llyfr Iolo’, or Llyfr Adar Cymru ac Ewrop, our standard resource for birds in Cymraeg. To hear the songs of some of our most common birds, what about learning them with your children and the Little book of garden bird songs? You could also visit Llên Natur which gives you the names of species in Cymraeg and English. The Heritage Lottery funded Gwreiddiau Gwyllt project is bringing together resources with nature terms that will be available to the public all in one place at the end of the project.