Hi. I have just started getting into bird watching/ feeding birds in my garden. I am looking forward to participating in the big garden birdwatch this weekend but I feel I am going to have some real issues identifying the small brown birds that frequent our garden. Any tips on telling them apart? In particular I think the house sparrow and tree sparrow are difficult to ID. There is also the dunnock, wren and female chaffinch. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
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Help with Big Garden Birdwatch UK - Small brown birds (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter weenie22
- Start date
myoudale
Well-known member
Maybe look to buy a cheap garden birdwatching book.
Tree sparrows differ from house as they have nice brown head and white cheeks.
Wrens are very small, when they call they trill, and often sit with there tail pointed up.
Females chaffinchs you want to look for a white wing bar, its often a simple indicator.
Dunnocks are usually a light brown colour on the back, with grey cheast and a grey circle leading from above the eye round to the back of the head and back to the chin.
Tree sparrows differ from house as they have nice brown head and white cheeks.
Wrens are very small, when they call they trill, and often sit with there tail pointed up.
Females chaffinchs you want to look for a white wing bar, its often a simple indicator.
Dunnocks are usually a light brown colour on the back, with grey cheast and a grey circle leading from above the eye round to the back of the head and back to the chin.
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Hi Weenie
Hope these links help - there's a link to the Gallery on each page where you can search for more pictures.
House Sparrow: Note the grey crown
Tree Sparrow: note the chestnut crown and white cheek patches
Dunnock: note the grey head
Wren: a lovely warm brown, upturned tail usually visible
Chaffinch: the female has a white wing bar
D
Hope these links help - there's a link to the Gallery on each page where you can search for more pictures.
House Sparrow: Note the grey crown
Tree Sparrow: note the chestnut crown and white cheek patches
Dunnock: note the grey head
Wren: a lovely warm brown, upturned tail usually visible
Chaffinch: the female has a white wing bar
D
deborah4
Well-known member
You won't be alone and the RSPB has preempted your dilemma with a special BGW online guide to garden birds (might be cheaper than buying a book!). These will be the most likely birds that will turn up in the garden (which IMO is particularly helpful to avoid straying into many other 'unlikely' possibilities that you might otherwise find online or in a bird guide)
http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/lookfor/
Chalky W
Well-known member
Why not take some photos and ID at your leisure if you're not sure of your ID abilities and then send the results in when you're confident in what you've seen.
Wimpy
Well-known member
Check out the RSPB website and you will find a bird identifier.
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdidentifier/
It might help
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdidentifier/
It might help
Espen
Well-known member
Hi
Just thought i'd say that it is much more likely that you will see a house sparrow than tree sparrow in your garden but at this time of year you never know!
some other birds that sometimes turn up in gardens at this time of year that may be worth looking into are:
pied wagtail(juvenile may be confused with dunnock, robin, or blackcap)
chiffchaff (may be confused with wren)
blackcap (female may be confused with dunnock, robin in moult or juvenile grey wagtail)
brambling (may be confused with chaffinch)
female goldfinch (may be confused with chaffinch)
sorry to confuse you but i'm just making you aware of the suprising variety that confuses everyone from time to time!:t:
if you want to practice just visit a patch of scrubby farmland or a wood which are often rich in birds that you would find on your garden bird table!:t:
Just thought i'd say that it is much more likely that you will see a house sparrow than tree sparrow in your garden but at this time of year you never know!
some other birds that sometimes turn up in gardens at this time of year that may be worth looking into are:
pied wagtail(juvenile may be confused with dunnock, robin, or blackcap)
chiffchaff (may be confused with wren)
blackcap (female may be confused with dunnock, robin in moult or juvenile grey wagtail)
brambling (may be confused with chaffinch)
female goldfinch (may be confused with chaffinch)
sorry to confuse you but i'm just making you aware of the suprising variety that confuses everyone from time to time!:t:
if you want to practice just visit a patch of scrubby farmland or a wood which are often rich in birds that you would find on your garden bird table!:t:
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Quercus
homo sarkensis
.. and male with marsh tit or willow tit.
... as someone said earlier, we can help if you can get a photo... or even a really good description.
We all started somewhere , and know the LBJs (Little Brown Jobbies) can be confusing!
Thanks for all your help! In the end we didn't have the best turn out of LBJs. I think we chose the wrong time of day (afternoon). It also didnt help that the sun was in our eyes. But on the little brown birds front we saw 2 dunnocks and 1 female chaffinch. Right now I can see at least 4 house sparrows (I think!) on the ground. Well, I might take you up on the photos idea, it just depends on my photography skills! Thanks again!
Marmot
Well-known member
Glad you got it sorted in the end.
If you have a cheap book shop in your shopping centre [ie The works] have a check out of there bird ID books there is always some good ones to be found and from about £3 or so
http://www.theworks.co.uk/product.asp?cid=&pid=1035
http://www.theworks.co.uk/product.asp?cid=&pid=589
If you have a cheap book shop in your shopping centre [ie The works] have a check out of there bird ID books there is always some good ones to be found and from about £3 or so
http://www.theworks.co.uk/product.asp?cid=&pid=1035
http://www.theworks.co.uk/product.asp?cid=&pid=589
pete wragg
Well-known member
I'm not sure how you are telling female Goldfinches from males,but in what way do they resemble Chaffinch ?
Pete Mella
Getting there...
Tree sparrows - unless your garden backs on to farmland you're fairly unlikely to get them, so in the majority of cases it's perhaps fair to assume it's a house sparrow. Tree sparrows are best told by their all brown crowns and black cheek spot. Male house sparrows have a grey crown and lack the cheek spot. Both sexes of tree sparrow are alike, unlike house sparrows, in which the female lacks the markings of the male.
Tree sparrow - http://borrowingtrouble.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/tree-sparrow-vrabec-polni-11.jpg
House sparrow m - http://www.bbc.co.uk/southyorkshire/content/images/2006/01/20/house_sparrow_nigel_blake_470x365.jpg
House sparrow f - http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/photolib/birds/Female House Sparrow.jpg
Dunnock - The dunnock looks superficially similar to a female house sparrow in colour, but often skulks around undergrowth in a very un-sparrowlike way, almost like a small mammal. It also has a much greyer head. You also see it has a narrow insect-eater's bill rather than a chunky seed-eater's bill like a sparrow or finch.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1c/Dunnock.jpg
Female chaffinch - easiest to confuse with female house sparrow, but the white wing bar is diagnostic.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/Female_Chaffinch_800.jpg
Wren - it's tiny! Has a thin insect-eater's bill, which is proportionately longer than the dunnock's, and has a tiny tail which if often holds cocked when perched.
http://www.wildliferanger.co.uk/users/www.wildliferanger.co.uk/upload/Wren 006.JPG
You may also get blackcap, chiffchaff, goldcrest and brambling at this time of year, but the ones above are the main ones.
I'm also not sure where Epsen's coming from with regards to goldfinches, as both sexes are alike.
EDIT - just realised this is a bit redundant now! Glad the BGBW went OK!
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midlands birder
Well-known member
true on most occasions, but in lower gornal, dudley, west mids etc i had them visit our fat balls in both summer and winter, and this in in b-ham crazy8-P, sadly the local population has completly died and i havent seen a singe tree sparrow for 2-3 years anywhere, so sad:-C
MB
King Edward
Well-known member
This book The Shell Easy Bird Guide is also particularly good for learning to identify garden birds and common British species in general.
