Field guide to the most commonly encountered mammals and birds

Here, we provide some basic information regarding commonly observed species (plus some others about which we have had queries).  

Feel free to contact us by email if you have any questions regarding species you have encountered on the site.

For more information about mammals, we recommend the Mammal Society's species hub, here. For birds, excellent resources are available from the RSPB (here) and the BTO (here).

 

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Dunnock

(C) AlexandreRoux01 (shared under a CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 license)

 

Scientific Name: Prunella modularis

Appearance: Similar in size to robin. Head and back rufous-brown with dark streaks. Supercilium, collar, throat and breast lead-grey. Orange-brown legs and fine, dark bill. Thin, white wing bar on relatively short, rounded, brown wings visible in flight. Sexes alike. Often encountered feeding on ground, flicking tail as it moves.

Song: Fast, shrill, jumbled warble with little variation in pitch throughout. Song bouts consist of similarly constructed phrases repeated at regular intervals.

When heard: Resident. Along with song thrush, one of the earliest regular singers in the year. Males sing from January/February through to the end of the breeding season, which may extend into September.

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