RSPB Birdwatch Begins Saturday

From the RSPB Birdwatch site-


For the past 30 years, we've been asking our supporters to count the birds in their garden. During this time, more than 3 million hours have been clocked up watching and enjoying the birds that visit our gardens (that's more than 380 years!), and every year, some 6 million birds are spotted by you.
Why is the Big Garden Birdwatch in winter? It's cold!
That's precisely why we do it in January. The cold weather brings birds into our gardens, looking for food and shelter, so it's pretty much the best time of the year for watching garden birds.
Ok, but why do I only have to count for an hour?
What is great about this survey is the amount of people who do it. We'd rather have half a million people watching for an hour, than fewer people watching for two or three hours.
So should I do my count at a particular time of day?
No. Any time is fine, although you will see more birds if you get up early! The time of day won't affect the overall results as the differences in bird numbers are evened out by the large number of gardens surveyed.
What about the weather?
The weather varies between years and also across the UK during each Big Garden Birdwatch weekend. Don't worry – because it's so random it doesn't affect the results in the long term.
What happens if I didn't see any birds?
Don't worry, please send your results in anyway. It all counts, even if there was nothing to count. Surveys are as much about what's missing as what's there. Some people see fewer birds than usual during their hour, but others see more than usual – so they balance each other out.