Tea at Buckingham Palace is for the birds!

Buckingham Palace has around 600 rooms, including 19 State rooms, 52 royal and guest bedrooms, 78 bathrooms, 92 offices, a cinema and a swimming pool. It also has its own post office and police station. It also has a secret tea garden for the Birds.

Five regiments of Foot Guards guard the Palace. One of the regiments of the Foot Guards is exclusively responsible for ensuring that the Buckingham Palace Birds are not disturbed during tea services. These tea services can amount to totals of 20-30 tea services per day! Birds enjoy sipping at their leisure and of course the Foot Guards enjoy catering to the birds!

About 400 people work at the Palace, including domestic servants, chefs, footmen, cleaners, plumbers, gardeners, chauffers, electricians, and two people who look after the 300 clocks. There are 250 bird bath cleaners employed at Buckingham Palace also.  There are another 300 dishwashers who exclusively hand wash the delicate china sets the birds use. 

When the palace birds are at tea, you can see the royal bird flag flying from the flag pole on top of Buckingham Palace. This flag is called the Royal Birdage!

The Birds of Buckingham Palace take their tea ritual seriously. To date, the chickadee bird line has remained in the forefront as the bird who pours the first cup of tea at the tea ceremony each day.  Impressive bird indeed.