Big Garden Birdwatch

What's going on in your garden?

The RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch regularly attracts nearly half a million participants, and the charity is hoping to break the half a million mark this year - it is encouraging everyone to spend an hour spying on their neighbours over 27th to 28th January 2007.

The records from people counting the birds in their gardens provide a vital snapshot of the UK's birds each winter. Over the years RSPB's scientists can record patterns in bird numbers and use this to help prioritise bird conservation work. The survey has recorded the huge declines in some of our most familiar birds - since 1979, the number of house sparrows counted has fallen by 52 percent and the number of starlings by 72 percent.

Wildlife presenter Kate Humble has teamed up with the RSPB to launch the charity's first-ever series of podcasts, available to download at the charity's website, the podcasts focus on the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. Produced to widen the appeal of the birdwatch and encourage participants to submit their results online, as well as adding interest for regular participants, the podcast series features seven 15-minute magazine style shows.

Kate Humble, who presents all seven podcasts, says, "Big Garden Birdwatch is really simple and fun, so I hope even more people will take part this year."

Richard Bashford, the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch co-ordinator, said: "Big Garden Birdwatch is now in its 28th year so finding ways to freshen it up is always a challenge. Embracing new technology is very important and we're keen to provide information in whatever format people want it. We hope everyone will enjoy listening to the series and be motivated to spend an hour counting the birds in their gardens this January."

The podcasts have been produced by Oxfordshire-based internet audio specialists Podcats.co.uk and detail the history of the survey, what goes on behind the scenes and also take a closer look at some of the RSPB's conservation projects. There are handy hints and tips for taking part and fascinating facts about the birds who share our homes and gardens.

To inspire you to take part in watching and recording these amazing visitors to our gardens, helping understand and prevent bird decline, here are some fascinating facts about our feathered friends.

Blue tits and great tits closely link their breedinwith the emergence of caterpillars - great food for growing chicks! A hungry family of tits might eat up to 10,000 caterpillars before they fledge - with each adult flying at least 100km in total to collect them

Every day the birds in our gardens have to find enough food to fuel them over the night - birds have high body temperatures of around 40c so to sustain this requires a lot of energy. The simple fact is if a bird finds enough food it will live, if not it will starve before dawn

They may be small but they certainly aren't silly - coal tits often lose battles of superiority over food so they hide it for later! They take sunflower seeds and peanuts for a winter store

Dunnocks are a likely bird to be seen at a wife-swapping party! Despite having one main partner for life, dunnocks can also have many other mates at the same time. Though its plumage is a muted brown and grey, the dunnock has a colourful love life. Most females have more than one partner - and so do most males!

Robins sometimes feed the chicks of other birds - they just can't resist a hungry chick!

Back in the days when milk was delivered to most homes in the UK, it was the blue tit that used to help itself before you could get the bottle off of the doorstep! It would pierce milk bottle tops to drink the cream but this stopped when semi-skimmed milk became popular (perhaps they couldn't get the screw tops undone!)

It's a dog eat dog world in the garden, you need eyes in the back of your head, especially where snails are concerned. Blackbirds are not expert snail-breakers, so they listen to song thrushes breaking snails and then set about robbing the spoils. Song thrushes have special sites for this task, known as anvils

Forget your ready meals - go for a food ball! Swifts gather flying insects to feed their young making food balls, which contain between 300 and 1,000 insects each

There are no winter fuel payments if you're a wren. The only way to keep warm on cold winter nights is by sleeping with a few of your close friends - well 62 if you want to be exact! An incredible 63 wrens were once found huddled in a single nest box

It's possible that the blue for a boy, pink for a girl tradition stems from starlings. You can tell the sexes apart by the colour of the base of the bill - blue for males, pink for females!

Ever woken up to a really bad hair day, well consider yourself lucky - during the late summer and early autumn birds moult. Blackbirds are obviously quite embarrassed by this and take to hiding themselves away until their new feathers have grown, making many people think that the birds have disappeared!

Robins venture surprisingly close to us, hoping we'll turn over

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