My own garden is on a much smaller scale than that of the US Ambassador's residence but I settled down to do the annual BGBW this morning at just after 11 o'clock.
Starling and goldfinch turned up almost straight away.
I was really pleased, and a bit surprised, to see a blackcap (female - with a brown cap). Blackcaps are becoming commoner garden visitors these days in winter. They are warblers - and in the past all would have disappeared off to southern Europe and north Africa for the winter, but now German blackcaps come to our gardens in winter. This one fed on dried mealworms from our feeder and stayed for about 15 minutes to give me a good look. It has happened before on BGBW day - I never see blackcaps in the garden in the winter except when I sit down for BGBW and then they aren't that unusual.
The fourth species was blackbird, and then chaffinch and wren made brief appearances and brought the species total to six.
I almost had a new species for the garden but it was a new species from the garden - reed bunting. A male perched in our neighbours' garden for a few minutes before flying off in the 'wrong' direction! But it was interesting to see a species which is really a wetland species in this urban setting.
There were no tits, no robin or dunnock, and even more surprisingly, not a single house sparrow.
And then it was off to my mum's for lunch - and another BGBW!
Her total was 10 house sparrows (she has my share, obviously!), starling, blackbird, robin and dunnock.
I've seen a few comments on Facebook (where you can find me as Mark Ian Avery), Twitter (Mark Avery) and some emails which have the usual mixture of delight at unusual species and frustration that the 'usual' birds didn't turn up at the right time! That's part of the fun of it for an individual - and it all comes out in the wash, we assume, as far as the overal results are concerned.
And so far it looks as though participation has been high - maybe breaking previous records?
We'll be ready to tell you the initial results on Wednesday - will there be evidence of any cold weather impact on our garden birds?
You're quite right about sitting down to look - there's been a female Blackcap around our garden on and off since the snow, but it was a surprise when she set off at high speed - to chase off another female Blackcap (they're pretty feisty, Blackcaps) and then there was a third ! - this time a male, which is how I knew there were three - thanks to BGBW for forcing me to spend the time to see them !
Nightjar - nice story! Three blackcaps - is it a record?
Mark, I don't know about three blackcaps but the Three Degrees certainly had a record. Nothing unusual in my garden although a lot of birds about. The beauty of doing this for me was having my 3 year old grandson saying 'What are you doing Grandad' and then sitting beside me unasked. You never know what that might result in in several years time.
Bob - that's a lovely story (and an almost funny joke too!)