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It's been a sluggish start to the year on the birdwatching front...January and February were spent slipping in the snow, trying to stay warm, and finding ways to celebrate a lockdown birthday. For the first time in 8 years we didn’t hold our bird ID training courses in the run-up to the RSPB Birdwatch survey in January, as we still can’t bring people together due to the pandemic. I had to make do with emails from volunteers and staff telling me what they saw on National Cycle Network routes, which was almost as delightful…but not quite. As I do every year, I headed straight to the Roseburn Path (Network route 1 in Edinburgh) for my Birdwatch, with hopes of seeing more than the blackbirds, sparrows and magpies of my back garden. I wasn’t disappointed. 4 wood pigeons, 1 magpie, 2 blackbirds, 1 bullfinch, 1 wren, 1 greenfinch, 3 robins, 1 chaffinch, 2 blue tits, 2 great tits, 1 coal tit, 1 goldcrest, 2 redwings, 1 song thrush…and there, on the way home, just when I thought it wouldn’t appear, the resident grey wagtail. (I know, I shouldn’t have favourites.) Plus I bumped into a friend. And the snowdrops were opening. And lots of people said hello. It’s easy to stay indoors after New Year, where the sofa, the telly, the books and the radiators are, but good to be reminded that the outdoors has a lot to offer in winter too.

I came across a quote recently from the philosopher, Edmund Burke - "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." That was the motivation I needed to get back to carrying out the occasional #2minutecleanup litterpick when I've been out exercising during lockdown. Once again, it's been a boost to see a place cleaner than when I arrived and to connect with people who often stop to say thank you. Bonus fact - spotted my first bumblebee of 2021 on this #2minuteclean up on route 7 last week, so I gave a little and got a lot back.

We sat in our gardens for a few minutes with our eyes closed then returned to our groups and discussed how we experienced our wild place through our senses. Some of the things said about sounds we heard was birds chirping, dogs barking, cars passing, tree noise. We couldn't really smell anything at the moment but we talked about what we could smell at different times of the year eg manure, certain plants, freshly cut grass. We also each collected 6 different items from our gardens to describe a certain word and then had great fun guessing each others words from the items

We discussed different types of plants and why they are important to us and animals such as food, shelter, protection and we watched a power point on 'How do we use plants?' We shared pictures of plants in our garden and sowed calendula seeds which we are excited to watch grow!

This is my second signs of spring collage.

Lots going on Tree planting Getting ready for seeds

Seed trays done Bug habitat started