A BIRD IN THE HAND...

I can't claim, in any way, to be an expert on birds...of either variety!
But the position of our home computer affords a super view of the back garden which, despite being very small, has a large berry-producing thorn bush - next to a tall leylandii in the house behind, on O'Hanlon Avenue (pictured - there are sparrows in there, honestly!).
They both attract a surprisingly high number of visitors of the feathered variety, and that set me thinking how well off Brigg must be in ornithological terms.
Those of us who live on the St Helen's housing estate are only a few hundred yards from open countryside, so it's no real surprise we get our fair share of species, including colourful ones like greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch and blue tit.
Along the River Ancholme, of course, you can glimpse various ducks, plus swans and the occasional heron.
However, certainly in our area of town, there's no shortage of sparrows, which are said to be in decline nationally. A small flock seems to spend a large part of its day visiting our garden and the one next door. We also get visits from starlings - another bird whose numbers are in decline.
Brigg folk of all ages who are interested in this topic will be very welcome to take part in the Big Garden Birdwatch, the world's biggest bird survey, later this month.
The organisers at conservation group RSPB say it gives a vital snapshot of the UK's birds each winter.
In 2007, more than 400,000 people took part by counting the birds in their garden for an hour. Together they spotted six-million across 236,000 gardens, helping reveal the winners and losers in the garden bird world.
The survey has recorded huge declines in some of our most familiar birds. Since 1979 the number of house sparrows counted has fallen by 52 per cent, and the number of starlings by 76 per cent.
However, chaffinchs and great tits have both seen their numbers increase since 1979 by 36 and 52 per cent respectively.
The RSPB is asking us to spend an hour 'spying our bird neighbours' over the weekend of January 26-27, to help the organisation discover 'who is top of the pecking order in UK gardens'.
Returning to bird-spotting in Brigg (not ladies visiting town centre pubs of an evening!) there have been some interesting sightings in recent years.
A peacock turned up in St Helen's Road, an albino blackbird in York Road, and a flock of multi-coloured waxwings frequented a tree outside Nick Blackburn's car lot in Bigby Road, attracting a number of binocular-using 'twitchers' to Brigg. On a more mundane level, there were three jackdaws looking for scraps on the footpath in Springfield Road the other day, while pied wagtails seem to like Wrawby Street in the summer.
Use the public footpath across the fields from Churchill Avenue to Tongs Farm, Wrawby, and there's a helpful sign giving information about lapwings you might be lucky enough to glimpse.
If you spot any rare birds in, or near, the town, drop an email to nigel.fisher@gsmg.co.uk - and please consider taking part in the RSPB survey at the end of this month. Visit www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch and download the PDF file to keep a tally of birds visiting your garden.