Elderly twitchers take part in RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

CARE home residents across the North have been monitoring their gardens for flying visitors as part of the world’s biggest wildlife survey.

Those living in Hill Care homes across Derbyshire and the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, the North East and West have joined hundreds of thousands of others in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch.

The residents have submitted their findings alongside 500,000 other participants, who are all helping to monitor annual avian population changes.

At Pelton Grange Care Home, in Chester-le-Street, residents made fatballs to attract birds to the garden. They spotted chaffinches, blue and great tits, pigeons, sparrows and starlings.

In Lemington, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, residents at Waverley Lodge Care Home also installed feeders, attracting blue, great and coal tits, sparrows, robins and magpies.

At Simonsfield Care Home, in Runcorn, local pet store Runcorn Pets and Angling loaned a canary to keep the residents company while they watched their garden.

At Rotherham’s Broadacres Care Home, the residents’ homemade bird cakes attracted blue tits, dunnocks and collared doves, among others.

More than two dozen Hill Care homes took part in the survey in total.

Wendy Waddicor, managing director of the Hill Care Group, said: “The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch is a great activity for our residents to get involved in.

“Everyone enjoyed making feeders and nesting boxes and then taking note of the flying visitors coming to their care home gardens.

“They spotted loads of different species, which will help the RSPB to get a better idea of the bird populations in our areas.”