Big Garden Birdwatch time!

Long-tailed tit: where for art thou? Photo: RSPB

I'm not sure if someone put something in the water near me over the weekend but all the swans seemed to have given birth at the same time. Two separate lady swans I see on the way to work were being followed by, in one case four, in the other five, signets this morning. 

In more important news today, the RSPB has launched its summer garden wildlife survey. This involves spending an hour this week writing counting the birds and any other wildlife that visit your garden. If anyone has done the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, now in its 30th year, you'll get the gist of what is required. 

I've been doing Birdwatch for the last two years and I'm sure the feathered ones have conspired against me and hidden deliberately on those days. I've had to submit counts that total something like 'two blackbirds and a sparrow' or, worse, 'one wood pigeon'. Then you read the results and half the country have seen long-tailed tits in their gardens.

This year I won't be spotting bees. We recently knocked the shed down and found a bees nest underneath it - so the council are coming today to take them to a better place (a hive, not Heaven...).