Thea (Learn Birds)

A blue tit's yellow chest is painted by its dinner. The pigment comes from the caterpillars it eats. So a bird on a poor diet or one carrying more parasites wears a paler duller yellow. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #bluetit

In the lesser spotted woodpecker the male takes every night shift on the eggs. He builds most of the nest too. The female clocks off at dusk while he sits through the dark. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #lesserspottedwoodpecker

Watch a common gull patter its feet fast on wet grass. It is drumming up a fake rainstorm the worms cannot tell from the real thing so they surface into the waiting bill. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #commongull

A grey heron grows patches of feathers that crumble into a fine powder. It rubs this through its plumage to soak up fish slime then combs it out with a comb-like serrated claw on its middle toe. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #greyheron

Rare good news for the turtle dove. A 2021 hunting pause across Spain France and Portugal let the western population climb around 40 percent by 2024. Roughly 615,000 more pairs. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #turtledove

Black-headed gulls shadow lapwings and plovers across a field then rob the worm the moment it is pulled up. Older gulls make the better thieves so robbery is a skill they learn. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #blackheadedgull

A magpie nest isn't the open cup you'd expect. Magpies build a domed roof of sticks over the top with a side door. That is unusual for a crow and it shields the eggs and chicks from prowling predators. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #magpie

Nothing to do with farm stock. The name comes from an old word for a tree stump or trunk. This is the dove that nests in holes in ancient timber not the one on the barn roof. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #stockdove

Some dippers build their domed moss nest behind a waterfall then fly straight through the falling water to reach it. The constant spray keeps the moss alive and green. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #dipper

When a kestrel hovers its body and wings shuffle in the wind but its head barely moves. It holds within a few millimetres so its eyes stay locked on a vole below. Hence the old name windhover. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #kestrel

Corn buntings sing in local dialects. Move a few miles down the road then the jangling song shifts to a different regional version. Each bird learns the tune of its own patch. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #cornbunting

A sparrowhawk is the redshank's winter nightmare. In hard weather hunger drives birds onto open ground where hawks hunt best. On some shores a third of young redshanks are killed this way. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #redshank

A hawfinch has bony serrated knobs inside its mouth that clamp a fruit stone in place like pliers while its huge bill crushes it. Cherry and olive stones don't stand a chance. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #hawfinch

As of 2024 the Lesser Redpoll is no longer its own species. Genome work lumped it with Common and Arctic Redpoll into one bird. A single supergene turns out to drive all those plumage differences. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #lesserredpoll

A curlew feels for food it cannot see. The very tip of the bill bends open deep in the mud. It is packed with sensors that pick up a buried worm by the faint pressure of it moving. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #curlew

Most thrushes go up into trees to sleep. Wintering Fieldfares often bed down on the ground instead. Dozens roost together in rough grass or on bare ploughed fields. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #fieldfare

Shine UV light on a puffin's bill and its ridges glow. This was found only in 2018. We miss the effect but puffins see ultraviolet so their bills may shine at each other in ways we never notice. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #puffin

The mistle thrush earned the old name stormcock by singing from the very top of a tree through gales and driving rain. It does this just when every other bird has gone quiet and taken cover. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #mistlethrush

The Ring Ouzel looks like a Blackbird in a white bib but the likeness is skin deep. Genes place it closer to the dusky and Naumann's thrushes of Asia than to the Blackbird it lives beside. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #ringouzel

That small black seabird is a serious diver. A razorbill feeds mostly around 25 metres down yet has been tracked past 100 metres. It chases fish on half-open wings like underwater flight. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #razorbill

A male linnet's rosy-red breast isn't his own doing. He gets the pigment from his food so it glows in spring and fades to dull pink by winter. That quietly advertises how well he is fed. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #linnet

The Stonechat gets going while others wait. Pairs can lay by late March in the south then run two or three broods before summer is out. Few small British birds pack in so many. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #stonechat

On St Kilda the fulmar was wealth on wings. Islanders valued its stomach oil so highly they stored it in a dried gannet gut then burned it as lamp fuel through the long winter dark. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #fulmar

A coal tit is a tiny food hoarder. It will tuck away hundreds of seeds a day. Each one goes into a separate hiding spot one at a time and it still remembers where most of them are weeks later. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #coaltit

Most small birds flock up in winter. The Rock Pipit does the opposite. Many stay put on one rocky shore all year. They guard a private stretch of coast as a winter larder. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #rockpipit

The drake Goldeneye courts by flinging his head right back onto his rump with bill to the sky. He cranks out a rasping note before kicking a sheet of water behind him. It is one of about 14 set moves. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #goldeneye

The blackbird is our classic garden bird but it moved in recently. Two centuries ago it was a shy woodland bird and did not start nesting in towns until the 1820s. It reached London by 1920. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #blackbird

Watch a meadow pipit display and it climbs while singing then floats back down on stiff spread wings like a tiny parachute. Open moor leaves it few perches to sing from. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #meadowpipit

Tufted Duck often tuck their nests inside noisy Black-headed Gull colonies. The gulls mob anything that threatens them so ducklings hidden among them are far likelier to make it. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #BirdOfTheDay #UKbirds #tuftedduck

More chiffchaffs now skip Africa and winter here. They haunt sewage works and watercress beds where warm water keeps midges hatching all through the cold months for them to eat. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #chiffchaff

Unlike the skylark the woodlark often sings from a treetop. Sometimes it sings right through a warm summer night. Its stubby tail gives it an almost tailless look in flight. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #woodlark

A Teal weighs about as much as a tin of beans yet one ringed bird lived more than 18 years. Small does not mean short-lived. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #teal

The blackcap has earned the nickname mock nightingale for its rich fluty song. It often slips in imitations of other birds from warblers to song thrush and even nightingale itself. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #blackcap

Skylarks were once food. In the 1890s up to 40,000 a day reached London's Leadenhall Market in sacks. They were netted off the fields by night for the table. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #skylark

On estuaries Wigeon often shadow Coots and Brent Geese poised to grab the eelgrass those birds dislodge. A grazing duck letting others do the digging. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #wigeon

A song thrush cracks snails on a favourite stone anvil and it is a skill it has to learn. Youngsters get it wrong at first. They bash snails on soft ground and pebbles against the wrong rock. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #songthrush

A hobby will take dragonflies on the wing then pass each one from foot to bill in mid-air eating as it flies. In early summer it barely touches anything else. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #hobby

Much of Britain's breeding Gadwall likely trace to a single pair caught in a Norfolk decoy around 1850. Pinioned so they could not fly home they stayed to nest and others followed. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #gadwall

In a murmuration each starling only tracks its six or seven nearest neighbours rather than the whole flock. That simple rule is why thousands can wheel and turn as one without ever colliding. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #starling

The willow tit is the only British tit that digs its own nest. It chisels fresh into a soft rotten stump each spring. Tidy woods leave it nowhere to carve. That is part of why it is slipping away. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #willowtit

The Mallard is the king of ducks for interbreeding. It crosses with 40-plus species and leaves fertile young. In places like New Zealand that quietly swamps rarer native ducks out of existence. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #mallard

Which bird song is your favourite? #birds #UKbirds #gardenbirds

On freezing nights a treecreeper hollows out a snug oval in the soft bark of a giant redwood and sometimes a whole huddle of them piles into one to share body heat. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #treecreeper

The marsh tit buries food all across its patch so it grows the brain to match. For its size the memory part of its brain runs far bigger than a great tit's. The great tit is the larger bird of the two. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #marshtit

In December 1967 a pilot over the Hebrides met a flock of whooper swans at 27,000 feet. That is airliner height. It stands among the highest flights ever logged for any bird. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #whooperswan

The nuthatch is named for how it eats. It jams a nut or acorn into a crack in the bark then hammers it open with its bill. Nut hack said quickly becomes nuthatch. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #nuthatch

Spring caterpillars now peak earlier each year. The pied flycatcher times its trip north by African daylight so it lands too late for the feast. Some Dutch woods have lost nine birds in ten. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #piedflycatcher

The mute swan is misnamed. It hisses more than sings yet its wings do the singing. In flight they throb a musical hum you can hear over a mile off. The loud trumpeters are the winter whoopers. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #muteswan

That classic 'twit twoo' is two owls not one. The female gives a sharp 'kewick' and the male answers with a wavering hoot. A single tawny owl never says the whole phrase. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #tawnyowl

The spotted flycatcher is one of very few British songbirds sharp enough to spot a cuckoo's egg and throw it out. Get that good and the cuckoo gives up. It rarely bothers them now. Learn your UK birds free at learn-birds.com #birds #UKbirds #spottedflycatcher