Garden birds
The birds you are most likely to see in a UK garden, with what they eat, what they are confused with, and their conservation status quoted from the source.
4 of these 30 are on the UK Red List. Common in a garden and doing well nationally are not the same thing — the house sparrow tops the Big Garden Birdwatch and is red-listed.
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Green list
Blackbird
Turdus merula
Green-listed and the best singer in the garden. Helped far more by leaf litter and an unclipped hedge than by anything on a feeder.
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Green list
Blackcap
Sylvia atricapilla
A grey warbler with a neat cap — black on the male, red-brown on the female. Increasingly spends the winter in UK gardens.
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Green list
Blue Tit
Cyanistes caeruleus
Green-listed and doing well. The most useful thing you can give it is caterpillars in May, not more seed in January.
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Amber list
Bullfinch
Pyrrhula pyrrhula
A thickset, shy finch with a black cap and, on the male, a deep rose-pink breast. You almost always hear the soft piping call first.
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Green list
Carrion Crow
Corvus corone
All-black, heavy-billed and usually alone or in twos. The crow that is not a rook: face feathered, bill thick, flight steady.
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Green list
Chaffinch
Fringilla coelebs
Still one of Britain's commonest birds, but quietly falling away. Pink-breasted male, bold white shoulder flash, a rattling downhill song.
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Green list
Coal Tit
Periparus ater
The smallest UK tit. Black cap and bib with a clean white patch on the nape — the one mark that separates it from a marsh tit.
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Green list
Collared Dove
Streptopelia decaocto
Pale sandy dove with a thin black half-collar. Unknown in Britain before 1955, now in almost every village and suburb.
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Amber list
Dunnock
Prunella modularis
The grey bird shuffling under the hedge. Not a sparrow: the bill is fine and pointed, and it is nearly always alone.
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Not assessed
Feral Pigeon
Columba livia
The town pigeon — a rock dove gone urban, in every plumage from pale grey to chocolate. A wild bird in law, like any other.
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Red list
Fieldfare
Turdus pilaris
A big, bold winter thrush with a grey head and chestnut back. Arrives from the north in October, leaves in spring, and loves fallen apples.
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Green list
Goldfinch
Carduelis carduelis
Red face, gold wing bar, tinkling call. A specialist seed-eater that has moved into gardens in enormous numbers over thirty years.
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Green list
Great Spotted Woodpecker
Dendrocopos major
Blackbird-sized, pied, with red under the tail. Male has a red nape patch; the juvenile's whole crown is red, which fools everyone.
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Green list
Great Tit
Parus major
The largest UK tit, and the bossiest bird on the feeder. Black head, white cheeks, and a black stripe straight down a yellow belly.
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Red list
Greenfinch
Chloris chloris
Red listed since 2021 after a disease outbreak halved it. A heavy olive-green finch with yellow wing flashes and a thick pale bill.
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Red list
House Sparrow
Passer domesticus
Red-listed despite topping the Birdwatch. Sparrows nest in colonies, so one box rarely works — put up three, near dense cover.
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Green list
Jackdaw
Coloeus monedula
The small crow with pale silver eyes and a grey hood. Nests in chimneys, calls its own name, and pairs for life.
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Green list
Jay
Garrulus glandarius
The woodland crow in pink and blue. Shy, harsh-voiced, and the reason oak trees appear where nobody planted one.
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Green list
Long-tailed Tit
Aegithalos caudatus
A pink-and-black ball of feathers with a tail longer than its body, arriving in excitable flocks and gone again in a minute.
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Green list
Magpie
Pica pica
Black and white, long-tailed and loudly opinionated. A clever, much-maligned crow that is doing rather better than its reputation.
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Green list
Nuthatch
Sitta europaea
A compact blue-grey woodland bird with a black eye-stripe, and the only UK bird that climbs head-first down a tree trunk.
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Green list
Pied Wagtail
Motacilla alba
A slim black-and-white bird that walks rather than hops, wagging its tail constantly, usually on a lawn, path, drive or flat roof.
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Amber list
Redwing
Turdus iliacus
A small dark thrush with a cream eye-stripe and rusty flanks. A winter visitor from the north, arriving in October and gone by April.
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Not assessed
Ring-necked Parakeet
Psittacula krameri
A bright green, long-tailed parrot with a red bill. Genuinely common only in London and the south-east, and heard long before it is seen.
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Green list
Robin
Erithacus rubecula
The gardener's shadow. Orange-red breast, upright stance, and a fierce territorial streak hidden behind a very tame manner.
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Amber list
Song Thrush
Turdus philomelos
Amber listed and down 45% since 1967. Warm brown above, small arrowhead spots in neat lines, and a song that repeats every phrase.
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Amber list
Sparrowhawk
Accipiter nisus
A fast, low-flying hawk that hunts small birds. Its arrival at a feeder is alarming, but it is a sign of a food chain that works.
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Red list
Starling
Sturnus vulgaris
Red-listed, down 61% since 1995, and still third in the Birdwatch. Its future turns on lawns and grubs, not on feeders.
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Amber list
Woodpigeon
Columba palumbus
Up 152% since 1967 and now Amber-listed on BoCC5. It needs nothing from your garden, which is a useful thing to know.
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Amber list
Wren
Troglodytes troglodytes
The UK's most numerous breeding bird and still Amber listed. Tiny, russet, tail cocked upright, with a song far too loud for its size.
An identifier that ranks matches rather than filtering them out, and confusion-pair pages for the species people actually mix up, are being built next.