Bird - Bite Sized Britain - Britain’s amazing history and culture

Blue Tit - the birdbox bird

This small, pretty and agile bird is a common garden visitor in Britain. The blue tit's acrobatic feats, fondness for hanging feeders and propensity to take up residence in bird boxes has made it a firm favourite with the British public.

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Common Pheasant

It comes as no surprise that such an exotic-looking bird as the Common Pheasant is not native to Britain, but was introduced to Europe from Asia by the Romans, arriving in Britain with the Normans in the 1100s.

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House sparrow - Mankind's feathered companion

The House Sparrow, noisy, cheerful, and dead common - until suddenly they weren't. Data suggests the UK's house sparrow population declined by 66% between 1977 and 2015, with urban populations faring worse than rural ones.

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Jackdaw - our clever companion in the townscape

The jackdaw is Britain's smallest crow, with a distinctive silvery sheen to the back of its head. It is a bird of woodland, parkland, coasts and urban areas, with a reputation for being curious, adaptable and a good survivor.

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The lapwing or peewit

Lapwings are birds of farmlands and wetlands, and can often be seen wheeling through winter skies in large, black and white flocks.

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The Raven - dark in look and nature

The common raven is the largest member of the crow family. This sombre and intelligent bird, with its deep croak and dark plumage is often seen as being associated with death - more specifically with an aftermath of a bloody or significant battle - and has long featured in northern European mythology, stories and works of art.

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The mallard - our best known duck

Mallard ducks are the most numerous wildfowl in Britain and can be found almost anywhere there is water, making them Britain's most familiar duck. It is the ancestor of most domesticated, farmyard ducks.

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The colourful Kingfisher - a rare but memorable sight

The kingfisher is one of Britain's most delightful and colourful native birds. When seen unexpectedly, it is usually as a sudden and stunning dart of jewelled blue diving into a river. The RSPB has estimated that there are between 4,800 and 8,000 breeding pairs thinly, but widely, spread across the UK. Their scarcity mean kingfishers are protected under Schedule 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

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The interesting Dunnock - don't call it a sparrow

If you see a quiet little brown bird hopping about in the garden - don't assume that it's a Sparrow. It may be a Dunnock, a common but unobtrusive British garden bird with an unusual sex life.

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The Moorhen - happy in your local pond

The common moorhen, a distinctive aquatic bird, is an interesting resident of most local parks, often to be found enjoying the water's edge.

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Little Owl - brought to Britain and flourished, but now in danger

Introduced into the UK in the 1870s, the diminutive little owl has flourished here, and can now be seen along hedgerows, on farmland and in parkland across England and Wales. It often perches on a pole or rock, looking out for its unsuspecting prey.

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Goldcrest, Britain's smallest bird

This beautiful bird is, together with the similar firecrest, Britain's smallest bird. Adults typically weigh just 5g, which is the same as a 20p coin.

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The Common Starling - aerobatic superstar of the sunset sky

The starling is a familiar bird visitor to gardens around Britain, notable for the beautiful purple-and-green sheen to its black feathers. It is also famous for its wintry aerial displays with massive flocks of sterlings to be seen wheeling in apparently co-ordinate aerobatics over both built-up areas and farmland.

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The statuesque Grey Heron

This striking bird is widespread across the UK and likely to be seen by urban and country dwellers alike - usually in its characteristic statue-like pose at the edge of ponds, canals and rivers.

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Mute Swan - elegant symbol of love

One of our most familiar waterbirds, the mute swan is famed for its grace and beauty. It is also considered to be a romantic of the bird world because partners form a perfect love heart with their necks.

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Northern Gannet - a photogenic seabird

Great big glorious gannets are often shown on our television screens nesting in huge numbers on inaccessible sea cliffs and islets. But they breed in significant numbers at only a few localities and so are an Amber List species.

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The Jay - Britain's colourful crow

The most colourful members of the crow family, jays are noisy and flamboyant, though much shyer than the other crows. They are woodland birds, rarely moving far from the cover of trees, and therefore less seen for their attractive plumage than the other mostly black crows.

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Skylark - the soaring sound of summer

The Skylark is our most common lark and is the subject of much poetry and a famous piece of music by Vaughan Williams. The bird is loved for its high-pitched trilling song, which it makes high in the air over open countryside in summer.

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Blackbird

The unimaginatively named blackbird is one of the most common UK birds. The bright orange-yellow beak and eye-ring make adult male blackbirds a striking garden visitor, and its beautiful song is much admired.

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The feral pigeon, a human friend - and foe

The feral pigeon, found extensively in Britain, is descended from the rock dove, the first wild bird to be domesticated. Sometimes regarded as a pest, it has made itself quite at home with humans, despite occasional eradication attempts. In fact, these birds are both adaptable and rather clever.

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Turtle Dove - a symbol of love that is vanishing from our countryside

The turtle dove is Britain's fastest declining bird species and is on the brink of extinction. A small and pretty pigeon, it breeds in lowland England and winters in Sub-Saharan Africa.

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The Puffin - popular and appealing seabirds

The Atlantic puffin is one of the most recognisable and popular of Britain's seabirds, with its bright orange beak and webbed feet. It breeds in the North Atlantic and the adjacent Arctic Ocean, with a significant population to be found around Britain and Ireland, where it is the second most abundant breeding seabird.

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A cuckoo's comeback - PJ the frequent 10,000-mile migrating flyer

The arrival of the first cuckoos in Britain from their migration back from Africa is often regarded as one of the totemic markers of British springtime. One such bird has been tagged and tracked on his remarkable regular 10,000-mile journey for five successive years.

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Song Thrush

The song thrush is a familiar garden visitor that has a beautiful and loud song. The broken shells of their blue, spotty eggs can often be found under a hedge in spring. Sadly, this tuneful bird is less common than it used to be in Britain.

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The nightingale - more likely to be heard than seen

Nightingales are the romantic focus of many famous British poems, songs and legends, and yet so rarely seen that they can appear to be fictional - or at least, to have disappeared from their traditional haunts. However, they still do exist, and are summer migratory visitors to south-east England.

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The wren - diminutive King of the Birds

The European wren delights in the bizarre scientific name of Troglodytes troglodytes, and is one of the smallest birds in the UK. It is also thought to be the most common breeding bird in the UK with 8.5 million breeding pairs.

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Tawny Owl - our most familiar owl

The Tawny Owl is a species that favours woodland habitats, but it may also breed in larger rural and suburban gardens. Our most familiar owl, the Tawny Owl is found across Britain but is absent from Ireland.

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Swallow - a much-loved summer migrant

The familiar British swallow is actually the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), the most widespread species of swallow in the world. Its summer migration to Northern Europe has made the bird a symbol of summer.

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Waxwing - a striking winter visitor

This very smart and distinctive bird with its tufted head is not a British resident but sometimes appears in large flocks in Britain in the winter, typically gathering in berry-bearing trees and bushes.

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Robin redbreast – the UK’s favourite bird

The robin topped a poll of more than 200,000 people in 2015 to choose the UK's first national bird. With its bright red breast, it is a familiar site in British gardens throughout the year, especially at Christmas.

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Turnstones - charming birds of the beach

The Turnstone can be spotted pacing around large stones on rocky and gravelly shores, flipping them over to look for prey. It can even lift rocks as big as its own body! Although a migrant to the UK, it can be seen all year-round as different populations arrive throughout the seasons.

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Birds of Britain

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Herring Gull - ruling the roost at the seaside