Birds in British Gardens - How to identify them

The RSPB leaflet shows the pictures and gives the names of 15 birds. But you need to be able to identify them instantly before they fly away. There are two problems. One is distinguishing the bird by a colour. A second problem is telling two similar birds apart.
   I began with two birds I knew well. The robin redbreast has a red breast. The magpie is black and white.

1 House sparrow. Striped wings like a timber frame house with black beams horizontal on brown.
2 Greenfinch. Green breast. (Green breast, grey wings, yellow on wings and beak.)
3 Robin redbreast. Only the breast is red. (The underbelly is grey-white. The wings are a darker plain colour. No stark black or white.) Looks friendly.
4 Chaffinch. Red - more red than robin redbreast, red tummy too. Looks cross that you confused it with a robin. Little fat beak. Bits of black and white like a magpie. Cross than anybody could confuse it with a magpie when only a tiny bit of the wing looks like a magpie. .
5 Collared dove. Black collar or necklace. Otherwise peaceful, clam, white or off-white. Seen on Xmas cards like snow white.
6 Magpie. Black and white. Like a well dressed man in a dinner suit. White belly shirt. Black (jacket) and black tail(coat).
7 Dunnock. Dull bird. Stripey like a house sparrow but all grey dull front and all grey head.
8 Goldfinch. Yellow gold patch on wing. Red face.
9 Jackdaw. All black - including beak. (Unlike male blackbird which has a yellow beak.)
10 Song thrush. (Has lines of dots like musical notes horizontally along breast.)
11 Coat tit. Black as coal head or titfer. Tits are tiny birds which have tiny beaks.
12 Blue tit. Blue titfer or head. (Blue back and wings, yellow breast.)
13 Wren. Small brown bird. White horizontal line follows beak across head.
14 Starling. Black like a film star in a top hat. High head. Long beak like a loquacious star in talkies.
15 Woodpigeon. Big bird more colourful than the dove. Orange beak and green cravat at back, pinky breast. Think woods and berries and holly, red and green tones.

   In the USA Bird-feeding is the most popular hobby after gardening. February is national bird feeding month.
   Back to UK:
NB Blackbird male is black with a yellow beak. Blackbird female is smaller and brown.
I picked up a handy guide to birds in this week's Waitrose Weekend magazine in the supermarkets.
The RSPB has more guides.
Wikipedia is also handy.
Bird Song & Sounds
   At night you might not see birds but you can hear nocturnal birds such as owls. I bought a toy owl from the Harry Potter Warner Brothers Studio shop. It is a snowy owl and when you press the wing it makes a squeaky sound. Barn owls have heart shaped flat faces like a disc to reflect sound. Owls have special feathers to help them fly silently and catch their prey, rodents such as mice and rats. Other owls are a browny colour and have what looks like two little sticking up ears.

Bird sounds are on
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/static/content/what-to-look-out-for/
More bird sounds are on IBC Internet Bird Collection

Angela Lansbury is the author of How To Get Out Of The Mess You're In. Also author of 19 other books including Quick Quotations. Buy online from Lulu.com or from the author for a signed copy at a Toastmasters International speakers meeting or from Harrow Writers Circle.

Watching British Birds In Gardens & Parks

Today I did the RSPB bird watch from 9.30 am to 10.30 am and I saw one male blackbird, one Coal tit, 2 magpies, 1 robin and 1 wood pigeon. I filled in the form they had posted me and informed them
that during the past year I had seen a hedgehog, grey squirrels, a toad which I thought (wandered in from neighbour's pond) but no frogs - a toad looks like a frog but less elegant and decidedly ugly, a sort of frog monster. The form did not allow me to mention the woodpecker I don't often see but hear constantly. It sounds like it is trying to chip away at my conservatory, probably only looking for insects among fallen leaves, but makes a dreadful racket.  We also see foxes regularly. They live in a neighbour's garden and run across our garden, sit on the path, or run across the road at night, not to mention make a dreadful noise. The first time I nearly called the police, then went to see and found two foxes, either fighting or making love, hard to tell, and I did not want to interrupt them and ask.
Bird observation has been an interesting exercise. I discovered I can see a nest in a tree two gardens away with two magpies flying to it regularly.
   I had previously seen what I though were a pair of blue tits on an apple tree. Today I deduced the distinctive black head meant it was a coal tit, at least today's singleton was. Then I aw the Great tit has the same colour black head and yellow breast. But on looking carefully - remember all those quizzes you did as a child comparing two similar pictures - now you know it would be more useful to compare birds. The Great tit seems to have a black line vertically down its middle. So I ticked the box for Coal tit. Then I tried to load up my answers to the website. I keep getting told server has dropped the connection, try later. I thought it was the router but apparently it's just the site I'm trying to reach, may be overloaded today because it is the great bird watch weekend. So I may have to post off my results. I can colour photocopy the leaflet. I took the precaution of getting the postal version in case I had a problem with the computer. I had not anticipated their server dropping the connection. I thought only that I might have a problem. Either way, it was a good decision.
   I'll do it again next year. If you read this before the weekend is up, you can still do your own survey, if you can get through to the site to download the form. Or just note down the birds for an hour, if you can identify them. Maybe take a photo with your mobile phone and identify them from websites later.
The birds they want you to count are
   Blackbirds, male (black with yellow beak, Female blackbird (browny with darker beak), Blue tit, Male chaffinch, Female Chaffinch, Coal tit, Collared dove (looks like a wood pigeon but has a ring of contrasting colour around the neck), Dunnock, Goldfinch, Great Tit, Greenfinch, House sparrow, Female House sparrow, Long-tailed tit, Magpie, Robin, Starling, Woodpigeon.
   I wanted to identify tiny birds I saw at the tops of trees and in neighbouring gardens and flying overhead. I realised it would have been helpful to have a pair of binoculars. The cheapest on the RSPB website shop is £27.50 plus any postage and packing you have to pay.
RSPB
rspb.or.uk/birdwatch
   To fill in the form on site they ask you to use the code BE06.
If you download the form you can post it by free post
Freepost RSTS-ZZCC-KJXU, The RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch, Halifax Road, Melksham SN12 6YY.
   You have to get the posted form to them by Feb 14. Results will be broadcast in March, they say.
Hurray for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds