I’m going to use these pages to list and ID by photograph the birds that we commonly get visiting the feeders or the garden in general, I may create another page for those less common appearances.
I will try to use only shots from the garden but will label any that aren’t but used as examples.
I’m also going to try to keep images of the young birds to a separate blog.
Blackbird
I’d guess that Blackbirds are one of our most common and regular visitors although numbers rise and fall with the seasons and weather. Male Blackbirds are Black, oddly enough, with a bright yellow/orange beak and eye-ring where the females are a dark brown colour and are often confused with Thrushes, especially when younger and the breast looks more mottled.
You can see how black they are in those shots, I’m calling the middle shot a young bird as there is still some dark on the beak, the young birds all start out with the darker beak and no eye-ring.
You can maybe see why now, some people confuse the female bird with a Thrush, the breast markings can be quite light.
I just loved the shot above as she appears to be watching me through the window from behind that old root.
Blackbirds can also show Leucisim where they have white markings or appear completely white but not Albino as they don’t have the pink eyes. This bird was in S. Wales in 2019/20.
Blue Tit
There are quite a few Tits in the UK, many of them are garden feeders such as; Great Tit, Blue Tit, Coal Tit, Long-tailed Tits and Marsh and Willow Tits, many people struggle to differentiate between them.
Blue Tits are one of those birds that we see and hear everywhere and I would have been very surprised if we didn’t have them visiting the garden.
Of course Blue Tits look mostly yellow with a white face but that blue cap and neck gives them their name.
They also tend to be really quick movers, in, grab and out again, until it comes to feeding young when they may spend a bit longer grabbing more food to take back to them.
The young birds are more greeny coloured without the bright blue cap.
Brambling
I wouldn’t call the Brambling a common garden bird I’d only previously ever seen them in a woodland where I went to photograph Hawfinches but, up here, when it snows we get a couple of Brambling dropping in to top up their food needs.
These are from February 2025 when it snowed, I’d just been wondering if they would show this year and ….
They tend to be ground feeders which can make getting decent photographs a bit harder. The Male is quite a bit darker than the female but both have gorgeous colouring. These mixed in with our resident Chaffinches.
That was it, so far, for this year, we may not see them again until either hot snows or next year!
Bullfinch
Bullfinches are not common garden visitors, for us anyway but some people get them quite regularly, these shots are from July 2024, the only visit we’ve had, to the best of my knowledge. 🙂
The males are this quite stunning bright reddish / pink colour and the females a little duller and can be difficult to spot up in the trees.
The shot above is from a nearby walk.
Scozmo's Photery 