The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2024 results are in, and pigeons and tits are top of the pops - Gaby Soutar

I know I’m a bit of a twitcher because I recently wept after seeing a kingfisher. It was just too beautiful, like a sapphire, amongst all the semi-precious stones (sorry, spuggies, but I do mean you).

Sad, I know, but I feel that I might be the Bill Oddie of my neighbourhood.

Earlier this week, my friend excitedly told me that she, too, had spotted this elusive bright blue bird, along the leafy fringes of Edinburgh’s Union Canal, and that she had taken an excellent picture of it, which she showed me on her phone.

It was a blurry heron. How I scoffed. Still, I am older than her and you get more into bird identification as you age. We don’t have any other excitement in our lives.

Long-tailed tit, Aegithalos caudatus Pic: Adobe

Thus, I was excited to see the results of the 45th annual RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, though they aren’t particularly surprising. There are variations throughout the UK, with over nine million birds counted. However, at number one in Scotland, we have the house sparrow, followed by the starling, blue tit, chaffinch, blackbird, wood pigeon, great tit, robin, goldfinch and coal tit.

There are plenty of my everyday faves in the line-up.

There’s no doubt that a blackbird makes THE sweet and hopeful sound of spring, at dawn or dusk. They say that birdsong soothes the human brain, as we’re hardwired to understand that it equals peaceful surroundings. The blackbird has more projection and diaphragm control than Pavarotti, but they certainly shut their beaks if predators are about.

However, my favourite call is from starlings, who are as speckled and dark as tarmacadam. It’s that strange metallic bubbling sound they make, from up on the telephone wires, that is like something from another planet.

Also, I know that many people are irritated by the noise that wood pigeons make. My grandfather hated it and thought they sounded imbecilic. I find it comforting and I will always be an advocate for the beaked underdogs.

For example, my kingfisher fail friend also discussed how much she detests seagulls and I got defensive on their behalf. They are in decline, so let them eat chips. It’s not like our equally scavenge-y species is in any position to criticise.

Pigeons, especially the poor gammy-legged city ones, usually cop a similar amount of flack.

We have one that perches at the top of our chimney and their reassuring throaty coo projects directly into the living room. Everytime we hear it, it seems to coincide with the wi-fi going on the blink. Just a coincidence, we think, though perhaps this one is employed by the broadband company.

There is also a pair nesting in our back garden, and we have named them Ted and Sylvia.

Their attempts to use the bird feeder are embarrassingly inelegant, but once Ted has clambered onto the tray and settled his plump rump on top of the food, he will stay until every last seed has been polished off.

The other birds, and Sylvia, look on from the surrounding shrubbery.

There was a study, a while ago, that showed that wild birds recognise human faces.

I believe this, as there’s a flurry of wings and tiny beady eyes in the undergrowth whenever my other half goes into the garden. He’s the one who orders vast tubs of seed and mealworms from Amazon, for “his feather babies”.

My beloved has also been gifted one of those stick-on feeders, for the window of the home office.

It’s always full of fresh crumbs and other delectables, and he’ll get the occasional fledgling, who will stand in the tray and look like a doofus, while a nearby parent frets.

My husband insists that his most regular customers are dunnocks, but I still think that brown feathers equals sparrows.

Apart from the goldfinch, which seems like a rarity to me, we see all of the RSPB top ten in our garden.

There are always blue or coal tits, and, though they’re not regular visitors, every few months or so, a flock of long-tailed tits will appear. I hear their chattering, before I see them.

They are unbelievably adorable. It’s as if they’ve been designed by Studio Ghibli or are Siberian pet hamsters with wings. They never stay long though. Just bob in, then dip out, but they always give me a serotonin boost. Apparently, their alternative name is a ‘silver-throated dasher’, which seems apt, but also makes them sound like charming little chat-up merchants.

I’m also a bit enamoured by pied wagtails. These tiny monochrome birds are Ray Harry Hausen-esque, in their strangely jerky stop motion movements. I always see them in the Lidl car park. Apparently, they like flat spaces. How strange. Funny little wannabe shoppers.

As we live near water and a park, we get some extra sightings too. There’s the swans and the ducks, who have gone very quiet, since they’re busy cooking duckling buns in the ovens.

I am already pining for the local goosanders, who have taken their hooked beaks and russet plumage back to Scandinavia, and I’m enjoying the return of the single cormorant, which is surely half penguin, half dinosaur. When he spreads his cloak-like wings, to warm up, everyone on the path takes photographs and he must surely feel like Elvis. In my nearby park, we also recently had a troop of well camouflaged mistle thrushes, who were sooking grubs off the lawn, as enthusiastically as Roombas.

There’s also an occasional heron. Never to be mistaken for a kingfisher. Not on my twitching watch.

www.rspb.org.uk