Big Garden Birdwatch

Big Garden Birdwatch Live highlights

The start of the clip shows Megan McCubbin and Chris Packham sitting outside under umbrellas. Megan says:

“This is from Toby, aged 6, he would like to ask ‘why are birds important for our environment?’”

Chris replies: “Oh my goodness where do we start?”

Megan says “where do we start? It’s a very good question.”

A robin is then shown singing in a tree, a crested tit flies down on to a bird table covered in peanuts. Lots of tits and finches are flying in and out feeding from bird feeders and a male sparrowhawk flies in to another bird feeding station.

Indy Kiemel Greene, a member of the RSPB Youth Council is then shown sitting inside a bird hide. He says: “So, I’ve got my notebook, I’ve got my camera I’ve got my binoculars, one-hour starting now.”

Shots are then shown of people taking part in their Big Garden Birdwatch – a young girl sitting on the doorstep with her binoculars, two children with their bird identification charts, bird food and fluffy bird toys ready for action and a view of someone’s  garden with a cuppa and a slice of cake.

The RSPB’s Luke Phillips is then inset on screen with the Loch Garten bird feeder web cam footage showing on the main screen and a coal tit hopping up to peck some food. Luke says “So, good morning everybody and what a morning it has been so far.”

The screen then shows the web camera at Saltholme with views of a couple of bird feeders being visited by small brown birds and the voice over from Luke saying: “There’s a live tree sparrow there.”

Naturalist and TV Presenter Nick Baker chips in saying: “There is a live tree sparrow I was just about to say that. I was jumping up and down, itching to point that out. “

Four bird feeding stations are then all shown on screen with a mixture of birds flying in and out visiting to feed including coal tits, goldfinches and Robins.

Luke is then shown on screen alongside BBC wildlife presenter Lizzie Daly. She says: “So it’s been a really good pick me up in very odd times.”

As the screen changes to show a bird feeder attached to a window, Luke says: “So we can possibly head to…” and he starts laughing saying “we’ve got a blue tit’s bum, there you go!”

Luke is then sitting on screen with Nick Baker. Nick Baker makes the ‘ker-wick’ call of a female tawny owl and Luke calls back the ‘whoo-hoo’ of the male bird. As they both laugh, Nick says “absolutely brilliant.”

Some goldfinches and a greenfinch are then shown on a feeder. There’s then another view of a goldfinch right outside somebody’s window, perched delicately on a flower stem as it feeds with cars parked on the road in the background.

Kabir Kaul from the RSPB’s Youth Council is then sat on screen alongside the RSPB’s Jamie Wyver. Kabir says: “People can hopefully appreciate their urban wildlife even more.”

Dr Amir Khan is then shown on screen alongside RSPB President Miranda Krestovnikoff. Dr Khan says: “That is just incredible, absolutely incredible.

A tree stump covered in bird food at Loch Garten is then shown with a chaffinch and coal tit pecking at the food while a red squirrel is clinging to a nut feeder in the background.

Chris Packham is back on screen alongside Meghan and he says: “Undoubtedly one of the best citizen science projects anywhere on the planet.” As Megan nods in agreement.

A robin perched on a rock surrounded by yellow gorse flowers flies off screen as the words ‘Thank you for being one in a million’ appear underneath the RSPB logo.