Birds of a feather out for the count

YOU don't have to be a wildlife psychologist to know that on RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch weekend every damn bird packs its bags on the Friday night and leaves town. I always do my annual hour of counting our feathered friends on a Sunday while I'm listening to The Archers Omnibus (effectively killing two birds with one stone). Big mistake. This Sunday was an unmitigated disaster.

It had rained solidly all night and was still raining by Archers' kick-off at 10am. No birds. At half past, the only thing moving in the garden was a grey squirrel swinging upside down on the peanut feeder. No birds. Next, I spotted the elephant-sized white tom trying to look inconspicuous in the lilac tree. No birds. Finally, at 10.45am, a pair of jays showed up, which guaranteed that no other bird would dare set a claw in the garden during their visit.

By now I was running between the front and back bedrooms in a frantic effort to get a sighting of anything that flies (an urban pigeon would have done, I'm not fancy). There was no bird food in the front garden but I do have a mahonia that the tits like to feast on and the robin enjoys singing from the top branch of the pavement prunus. No birds. And The Archers had finished.

My neighbour Tony, out walking the dog, rang my doorbell to lament his dearth of finches and asked plaintively whether I'd had any so far. Not a dicky bird - my six goldfinches and four serrins had vanished off the face of the earth. I know when I'm beaten and got on with reading Revolutionary Road.

It's uncanny the way the bird and animal kingdom sense when something's afoot that's in their best interests and then try to sabotage it. Jimmie the three-legged supermog always knows when it's visit-the-vet day and heads for the hills. Unfortunately for him he's a bird-brain, so this merely involves running upstairs and shoving his head under the divan bed. He has yet to tumble to the fact that it's his enormous bum sticking out in plain view that gives me my god-like omnipotence.

I did give the count another go and my final bird tally was: two jays, one obnoxious wood pigeon and his much bullied mate, two robins, one posturing male blackbird and his long-suffering partner, one goldfinch (he's always been a loner), one great tit, one blue tit and two starlings. This is quite a bit down on what it should be but that's a rainy Sunday for you. Strictly for the birds.