Garden bird identification
Part 1 - some smaller birds
If you love watching your garden birds but don’t know your coal tit from your dunnock, we’ve put together a handy visual guide to some of the common garden birds you might see in Limpley Stoke and Freshford.
Robin – one of the most well known, with its red breast.
Blue tit – another favourite, the blue tit is about 12cm long, with distinctive blue markings.
Great tit – not to be confused with blue tits, great tits are a little bigger – 14cm and have a black top to their heads and a distinctive black stripe down their breast.
Coal tit – more like the size of a blue tit, but with a grey back, and black head, with white markings.
Long tailed tits – about 14cm long, but a lot of that is tail! With black and white and pink-ish markings, they are quite easy to identify, and often move in a flock.
Dunnock – with brown and grey colouring, the 14cm dunnock is sometimes mistaken for a house sparrow. You might spot them nervously hopping around on the ground.
House sparrow - just for comparison, this is a house sparrow. It’s a little bigger: 14-15cm and has bolder markings than the dunnock. They are also much rarer, so if you’re not sure, it’s probably a dunnock.
Goldfinch – an easy bird to identify is the goldfinch. At about 12cm, its has markings of bright yellow, pale brown, black and white, and a red face (adults).
Blackcap – finally, a bird that is becoming increasingly common to see in winter in our area because of climate change. A little smaller than many of the birds listed here– 13cm, the blackcap has a black (male) or red-brown (female) cap on its head, and grey/brown back with paler underside. If you do see this bird, keep quiet and listen to its song – it is called the ‘northern nightingale’.
Photo credits
Robin: Jacob Spinks from Northamptonshire, England, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Blue tit: © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Great tit: Ian Kirk from Broadstone, Dorset, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Coal tit: nottsexminer, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Dunnock: Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
House sparrow: Mathias Appel, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Goldfinch: © Francis C. Franklin / CC-BY-SA-3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Blackcap: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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