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Birds A - Z | Bird Guides | Bird Identification
If you're unsure about bird identification and need access to bird guides, use our A to Z. Select the first letter of the wild bird you think you've spotted in your garden and see if it's a match. We'll suggest the best bird food to buy from Haith's so you can help make a difference in your garden.
Chiffchaff
The Chiffchaff (Phylloscopus collybita) is a tiny leaf warbler, with olive-green and brown upperparts, white or very pale yellow underparts and their breast and flanks are yellow.
Crested Tit
It may not be a very colourful bird but it can be easily recognised with its distinctive short, spiky crest, black and white head and its black eye strip. Its bill is also black, the upperparts are grey-brown and the underparts are whitish.
Kingfisher
The Kingfisher is one of Britain’s most beautiful birds. Can be found near lakes, canals, and rivers all over Britain except Scotland, where it is restricted to the south.
Lesser redpoll
The Lesser redpoll (Acanthis cabaret) is a tiny passerine bird from the finch family (fringillidae). Its upperparts are a warmish brown with darker streaks, wing bars are a buff colour, dark streaks on the whitish flanks and a dark brown forked tail. However, their most striking feature is their red foreheads (from which the common name ‘red-poll’ is derived).
Nightingale
The Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) is a small brown bird with a coppery tail with uniform brown plumage and a large dark eye. It is a summer resident mainly in the east and south of England.
Willow Tit
Very similar in looks to the Marsh Tit, unfortunately in fast decline. Can be found in damp woodlands, hedges and, thickets in England, Wales and southern Scotland.
Willow Warbler
Has very similar plumage to the Chiffchaff but look out for brown legs as this usually indicates that it’s a Willow Warbler
Raven
The Raven (Corvus corax) is part of the crow family; it is a large intelligent bird and is all black in colour with long wings and a large bill, it also has a diamond –shaped tail. For their size, they are very acrobatic birds and they are known to make a variety of sounds such as a croaking noise or caw caw. They also like to imitate humans.
Chaffinch
Many of these will be Continental migrants that have come to Britain to escape the bitter European winters and will return as springtime approaches. Others may be those displaced from their previous feeding areas on stubble fields. When we examine our breeding population the overall position is little different from other native finches.
Collared Dove
Easily identified by its fawn colouration with brown flight feathers, it has a narrow black collar around the nape but which is absent in juvenile birds.
Common Gull
Easily identified as the smaller and gentler version of the herring gull and equally fond of live foods, insects and chips!
Great Spotted Woodpecker
The great spotted has become the most familiar woodpecker due to regularly visiting bird-tables in observers' gardens.
Green Woodpecker
The Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) is a member of the woodpecker family (Picidae). It is one of three types of woodpecker and is the largest.
Greenfinch
This is a popular garden visitor and likes to feast on many seed mixes, including black sunflower seeds. They are also very fond of insects too! Garden conifers are their favourite place to nest.
House Sparrow
This is another species that has declined catastrophically in the last few years and is now completely missing from areas where it was once the most common species around.
Long-Tailed Tit
In recent years Long-tailed Tits have copied the hanging feeder habits of the Blue and Great Tits and now visit feeders frequently especially during cold weather.
Mistle Thrush
The Mistle Thrush is the largest of the thrush family found in Britain. It is mainly grey-brown and has larger breast spots than the Song Thrush and white tips to the outer-tail feathers.
Grey Wagtail
The grey wagtail has slate grey upper parts and a strong yellow under-tail. In flight its tail is longer than those of pied and yellow wagtails and it looks exceptionally narrow at the base.
Pied Wagtail
There are 3 common species of British Wagtail. They all look very different and have different habitat preferences. Breeds all over Britain, often - buy not always - form large roosting flocks in winter gathering in urban areas such as factories or carparks.
Reed Bunting
The Reed Bunting, once common in the countryside particularly near water and reed beds, has become much rarer in recent years. It can still be found in the remoter areas of wet lowland Britain and on many of the wildlife reserves where reed beds are present.
Siskin
The Siskin is Britain's smallest finch and a bird commonly associated with coniferous forests where it usually breeds. It has greenish coloured plumage, streaked dark brown to black, the male having brighter and darker colouration with a black forehead and chin patch and a black tipped tail. Females and juveniles are duller with more streaking.
Song Thrush
The Song Thrush is at present a rare sight for British birdwatchers and it may be another species that has suffered from changes in farming practice.
Spotted Flycatcher
The name says it all: a champion flying insect catcher. On the RSPBs Red List.
Tree Sparrow
Once a common bird of orchards and country gardens, the Tree Sparrow is now a very rare species in Britain. This contrasts widely with the same species at the other end of its range in South East Asia where it is very common even in large cities.
Treecreeper
The Treecreeper is resident in woods, parks, and gardens throughout Britain, in quite large numbers, but can be hard to find.
Waxwing
The Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) is a passerine bird whose characteristic crest is mostly a reddish-brown with a small black mask round its eye with white and yellow in the wings punctuated with a yellow-tipped tail. Red highlights can be seen on some feathers on the wings which look like sealing wax and this is how the name Waxwing came about.
Woodpigeon
The Woodpigeon is the most widespread of Britain's pigeons and considered a pest by many farmers for the damage it creates to agricultural crops.
Yellowhammer
The bright yellow plumage of the adult male Yellowhammer along with his reddish-brown upper parts and white outer tail feathers easily distinguish him from all other buntings and finches that he may be compared with.
Feeding wild birds offers a ray of hope in what can sometimes be a gloomy outlook for the UK's wildlife. It's clear that wildlife has been suffering in the countryside for many years and research from wildlife charities illustrates significant reductions in the wildlife population since the 1970s.
However, there is good news: some species have ventured into our gardens and have adapted fast to supplementary wild bird food and do not think twice about visiting bird feeders - the Goldfinch population, for example, has thrived on the back of garden bird feeders filled with niger seed and sunflower hearts. The message is simple: let's do more to encourage them and when they turn up, let's do our best to make it worth their while by feeding high-quality seed.
It's too easy to give in and say there's little we can do to prevent future losses, but that's not strictly true as our garden space combines can together create the UK's greatest nature reserve. If we're successful, we get to enjoy the company of our feathered friends up close while they dine on nature's finest super-clean seeds and bird diets.
Use our bird feeding A to Z guide to select the most appropriate bird food by bird species. However, don't be afraid to experiment and try something different from time to time as variety is the spice of birdlife when it comes to a healthy bird diet. Thank you for feeding the birds.
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