Bird Box Cameras Guide to Birds in your garden

Bird Box Cameras

Bird Box Cameras Guide to the Birds in your garden

Below is a range of birds that you may be able to attract to your garden. Many of these will be attracted to our Bird Feeder with colour camera - which you can view up close on your own television.

Blackbird

Blackbirds are so familiar that they should present no difficulties in identification. Adult males are black in colour and in full breeding plumage show yellow eye-rings and bright bills. Adult males with duller bills and lacking yellow eye-rings at the start of the breeding season will be winter visitors, probably about to depart back to their own breeding grounds (where they will then develop the full breeding plumage). Females are umber or rufous brown in colour, often with a pale throat patch. Juveniles are a warm rufous brown, with spotted plumage.

Blue Tits

Like most other members of the tit family, Blue Tits are small birds, with strong bills and a rather plump but lively appearance. One of the most noticeable features is the strong head pattern; the dark blue-black eyestripe and the brighter blue ‘skull cap’ are set against the white cheeks and forehead.

The blue-green back becomes a brighter blue on the wings, while the underside is a bright lemon yellow. Although male Blue Tits are usually brighter in colour than the females, this difference is not normally apparent in the field. Young Blue Tits are duller in appearance than the adults and have pale yellow rather than white cheeks.

Bullfinch

The Bullfinch is a medium-sized to large finch, round in shape with a large, robust bill. Both adult males and females have a black cap that extends forward around the bill, together with a grey back, black wings (with a grey-white wing bar), black tail and white rump. The underparts of the adult male are rose-red, while those of the female (and juveniles) are pinkish-grey. Juveniles have a brown head, lacking the black cap.

The call note is a low, piping ‘deu-deu’ (sometimes ‘deu’), while the song is highly variable, though usually quiet in nature and audible only over short distances.

Chaffinch

The plumage of the Chaffinch is unmistakable and this species is extremely unlikely to be confused with any other species, except possibly Brambling. During winter, the male Chaffinch has a red-buff head and nape, a buff-chestnut back, olive-green rump and pink-red cheeks, throat and chest. The belly is a creamy-white. Towards the end of the winter, the tips of the feather become worn away, revealing the stronger tones of the breeding plumage lurking below. As a result of this abrasion the slate-blue crown and nape become exposed, as does the chestnut back. In flight, the two white wing bars can be seen.

Female Chaffinches and immatures are less strikingly coloured, with an overall drab brown-grey-green appearance to the back and head and a buff off-white belly and chest. Again the two white wings bars can be seen in flight. Chaffinches are about the size of a House Sparrow but have a thinner more elongated shape, with a longer tail. There are a number of calls made either in flight or when perched, notably a strong, clear ‘pink’, but it is the song that is most characteristic and no doubt familiar to Garden BirdWatchers across Britain. The song is loud and bright in presentation, characteristic (though with regional dialects) and repeated often from a prominent perch.

Coat Tit

Coal Tits are slightly smaller than the Blue Tit, with olive-grey upperparts and white-buff underparts. Although in general appearance they are reminiscent of both Willow and Marsh Tit, they have a characteristic head pattern, with a black bib, white cheeks and a black cap that extends down to the base of the neck at the sides. In the middle of this black cap, running from just below the top of the head back down to the neck is a rectangular white patch, so this is one species where a back view can help identification.

The calls of the Coal Tit are a bit like a weedy, higher-pitched version of the Great Tit, with a thin-sounding ‘tsee-tsee-tsee’ call and a basic song of ‘teachoo-teachoo-teachoo’ repeated several times.

Goldfinch

The black wings, with their broad band of bright yellow, and the black tail with its white terminal spots, are distinctive in all ages of Goldfinch (the sexes are alike, or nearly so). In adult birds, the striking head pattern of red, white and black is equally characteristic (in juveniles this is absent). In size, the Goldfinch is smaller than a Greenfinch, delicate in appearance with a noticeably pointed bill.

Goldfinch calls are a beautiful series of notes and an equally wonderful song. Both are liquid in nature, with a real fluidity to the constantly uttered ‘tswitt-witt-witt'.

Great Tit

The Great Tit has all the characters of the other Parus species and is unmistakable given its large, robust size, relatively heavy bill and domed head. The head pattern shows a black cap (glossy in males), neck collar and bib set against white cheeks. The back is green turning blue-grey towards the rump and tail and on to the wings. The underside is a bright lemon yellow with a central black stripe running down from the throat. This black stripe is wider and more strongly developed in males than it is in females. Sometimes in the field you can see that in the male the black stripe extends across the belly to the base of both legs, while in the female it is not so broad and does not reach the legs.

Great Tits have been shown to utter a range of calls, including the scolding ‘cha-cha-cha’ that has a strong nasal quality. The most familiar sound though is the basic song, usually described as ‘teacher-teacher’.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

There are just two black and white woodpeckers to be found in Britain (there are none in Ireland) so identification is relatively straightforward. One of the main characteristics is the red underneath the tail. This is not found on the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. As the names would suggest the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker is a small bird, about the size of a Greenfinch, while the Great Spotted Woodpecker is about the size of a Starling.

Great Spotted Woodpecker juveniles have red foreheads that are replaced by black as they moult in the autumn. Adult males then have a red nape but females have no red on their head at all and all these differences in plumage are easy to see. Many Garden BirdWatchers enjoy working out exactly which Great Spotted Woodpeckers are coming into their gardens, male female or juvenile?

Greenfinch

Male Greenfinches are a dull olive-green, with greenish-yellow on the breast and rump, together with bright yellow wing flashes. Adult males also have bright yellow carpal joint (the alula feathers) and yellow to the edge of the tail. Females and immatures are duller in appearance than the adult males, with less yellow visible in the plumage. Juveniles are paler in colour and have streaked plumage. The size of the Greenfinch (similar to a House Sparrow) makes it easy to separate from the much smaller Siskin.

Greenfinches have a number of different calls, uttered either from a perch or given in flight, including a rapidly delivered ‘chichichichichit’ and the characteristic nasal ‘dzwee’, the latter commonly heard during the breeding season. The song is usually consists of a mix of pleasant tremolos interspersed with some rather less-melodic tones and a rather nasal ‘chewlee’ note.

Longtailed Tit

This species has a very different appearance to the other tits and can easily be separated from them by its long, narrow tail, small size and colouration. The general appearance is one of a black and white bird with pink and dusky tones, incredibly acrobatic in nature and with a distinctive shape in flight of a small pale ball followed by a long tail.

In adults, the head is white, with a broad black eye-stripe that extends back down the neck; the upperparts, wings and tail are dark with areas of pink, while the underparts are a dirty white, tinged with pink. Young birds are duller in colouration than adults, the black being replaced by a dark brown and the pink replaced by white. These young birds undergo a complete moult just a few weeks after leaving the nest and so it is impossible to separate them from adults after they have undergone this moult.

Long-tailed Tits are usually seen in extended family parties of 8-20 individuals and these mobile groups typically give themselves away through their characteristic contact calls. This call is a sharp ‘tsurp’, repeated several times. Once heard, it is easily remembered and often the first indication that a small group of Long-tailed Tits is in the area.

Robin

The red breast of adult Robins is instantly recognisable making this species one of the most straightforward to identify. Juvenile Robins lack the red breast and have brown upper parts and breast speckled with dark brown. Bit by bit the red breast starts to appear in late summer, but even in juvenile plumage the round shape, long legs and cocked head postures are characteristically 'Robin' in nature. Robins have a delightful musical song, flutey in nature and pitched higher than that of a Blackbird. Being territorial all year-round means that Robin song can be heard throughout the winter months, and Robins can often be heard singing at night throughout the year, prompted by street lighting.

Wren

The Wren is instantly recognisable as a tiny warm-brown bird with a restless nature, often seen holding its short, stubby tail erect. Although the Wren has a smaller wing length than a Goldcrest of Firecrest, it is a surprisingly stocky bird and is considerably heavier. When seen at close range, the delicate tones of the warm-brown plumage become visible as does the rather long bill and pale-coloured line above the eye (known as the supercilium). Rather surprisingly for a bird of this size, the Wren has a loud song, well-structured and consisting of a series of clear but shrill notes. Equally familiar is the scolding alarm call, a rapid chittering.