The Birds in My Garden Trivia Quiz

Answer:

The magpies are among my most regular visitors and I see one or more every day. They wander around the lawn foraging for food and regularly splash around in the bird bath. They belong to the crow family and are among the most intelligent of all bird species. The ones we see in the UK have white bodies, black heads and faces, and wings which have shades of blue and green.

Great tits are the largest of the tit species found in Britain. They have round bodies with a black head and bib, olive green wings and yellow underneath. Blue tits also visit, but are smaller and have a blue head, giving them their name. The robin is probably the most popular bird in the UK and is often described as the national bird. They have brown wings and a bright orange to red front, giving them the popular nickname of robin redbreast.

The chaffinch is a member of the finch family, as the name tells you. The male looks very pretty, with a pink breast, a blue cap on its head and white stripes on brown wings. The female also has the wing markings, but is more subdued with mostly brown upper feathers and pale brown feathers underneath. The greenfinch is another finch, of course, and has greenish coloured feathers giving it its name. It has flashes of yellow on its wings. Finches eat seeds and have strong beaks to help break them up.

Starlings tend to turn up in large groups. They have feathers which look black at a glance, but are actually a mixture of colours which shimmer in shades of green and purple. They usually have white spots too. They mainly eat insects, so are likely to poke around the borders to see what they can find. The blackbird is another bird which looks different depending on whether you are looking at a male or a female. The male has totally black feathers, while the female has much duller feathers of brown. The male has a bright yellow beak while the female's is more muted.

One of the more unusual visitors who turns up regularly is the great spotted woodpecker, the larger of the two spotted woodpeckers found in the UK. They turn up only in the winter, probably spotting some easy pickings for food. It's quite funny to see a woodpecker using a hard beak designed to drill against wood using it against a defenceless fat slab. These birds have black plumage with white spots and a red patch of feathers on their heads, which makes them easy to identify. I usually see males, which have another red patch underneath their bodies and near the tail.

Another member of the crow family is the jay, the most brightly coloured of the family. These pretty birds have pinkish grey feathers with black and white on their backs near the tail. They also have an edging of blue striped feathers on their wings. At times, I've seen two of them at the same time. By contrast, sparrows are rathe dull looking birds - birdwatchers call them 'little brown birds'. Look closely, though, and you'll see several shades of brown forming patterns on the wings of the male, so not as boring after all.

The last two visitors are the thrush and wren. The thrush is the same size and shape as a blackbird, but its colouring is very different. Thrushes have brown upper parts and wings with breast feathers of a pale brown or white. The breast is heavily speckled. The wren is a very small bird, although not the smallest in the UK. That honour goes to the goldcrest, which I've never managed to spot. Wrens are also small and brown but they have a distinctive upright tail which makes them easy to identify. They usually scurry around on the ground, underneath shrubs and other plants.

The wrong answers include two seabirds, which don't come near gardens. Puffins live on cliffs on the coast while the sandpiper wades around on the seashore, digging in the sand with its long beak. Golden eagles are found in the UK, but are not garden birds, preferring wilder regions and mountains. The mallard is a very common duck, but not one you'll see in gardens. The final two listed don't even live in the UK. Hummingbirds live in the Americas and the kookaburra is a type of Australian kingfisher.

I do get some seabird visitors, though. Gulls seem to have an uncanny knack of spotting food being thrown onto the lawn from miles away and spread the word to their friends, turning up in large groups. They are surprisingly large close up - and very noisy.