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Fun Facts
For each month during 2022, we posted on Facebook various facts about common garden birds so we could all learn a little more about the birds visiting our gardens. These could be facts about their past, their special abilities, adaptations or behaviours, or how their population is either thriving or declining.
Rather than all those interesting points get lost in past Facebook posts we thought it would be a nice idea to compile all those facts in one page on our website where they can be enjoyed and looked back on whenever you like. Plus we may add more fun facts in the future.
Blackbird
General Information
•Blackbirds grow to a length of 25cm, a wingspan of 38cm and weigh up to 100g. There are around 5 million breeding pairs in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The only European country with no breeding Blackbirds is Iceland.
•The oldest ringed Blackbird recorded was 20 years old, although their average lifespan is around 3 and a half years.
•The song "Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie" was actually a coded message used to recruit crew members for the notorious 18th-century pirate Blackbeard.
Recommended Food
Suet Pellets.
Blue Tit
General Information
•The Blue Tit grows to a length of 12cm, a wingspan of 18cm and weighs up to 11g. There are around 3.6 million breeding territories in the UK.
Fun Facts
•For such a small bird Blue Tits can have an astonishingly large clutch of eggs, with woodland Blue Tits recording as many as 19 eggs being laid in one brood.
•Blue Tits are often found nesting in some of the most unusual and inappropriate of places. Blue Tit nest sites have been found in letter boxes, street lamps and wall mounted cigarette ash bins to name just a few.
•100 years ago from now a small group of Blue Tits had been noted to be raiding milk bottles off the doorsteps of peoples homes. By the 1950's this behaviour of piercing and opening foil milk bottle tops to get to the milk inside had swept nationwide from birds learning from one another. They were even known to distinguish which bottles contained skimmed milk and avoid them from the different coloured lids.
Recommended Food
Kibbled Peanuts.
Bullfinch
General Information
•The Bullfinch grows to a length of 16cm, a wingspan of 26cm and weigh up to 27g. There are around 190,000 UK breeding pairs.
Fun Facts
•Bullfinches were once considered a serious pest in orchards. So much so that during the 16th century, under King Henry VIII, an Act of Parliament declared that one penny would be paid for every bird killed.
•The Bullfinch gets it's name from their bull-headed, front heavy appearance resembling a bull.
•Bullfinches have specially developed food sacs positioned in the floor of the mouth, which allows them to carry more food back to their chicks in one trip. They are the only species of finch to have this sac.
Recommended Food
Original Feeder Mix.
Dunnock
General Information
•The Dunnock grows to a length of 14cm, a wingspan of 21cm and weighs up to 24g. There are around 2.3 million breeding territories in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The Dunnock has many other names. The most common being the Hedge Sparrow. Although this bird has many similar appearances to the sparrows it is in fact part of the accentor family and has no relation to sparrows.
•Another popular name for the Dunnock is 'Shufflewing'. This name appropriately came to be due to their frequent wing and tail flicking whilst on the ground and can be often observed whilst they're feeding.
•Female Dunnocks will often mate with more than one male during the breeding season. If a male has mated with a female it will help raise the young even if they're not his offsprings. So it is common for a family of young Dunnocks to be fed by 2 or more males, resulting in a higher chance of the young fledging.
Recommended Food
Deluxe Seed Mix.
Goldfinch
General Information
•The Goldfinch grows to a length of 12cm, a wingspan of 25cm and weighs up to 19g. There are around 1.2 million breeding pairs in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The collective noun for a group of Goldfinches is called a charm of Goldfinches, which in my opinion is one of the most fitting collective nouns given to any species of animal.
•During the Victorian era, Goldfinches were a hugely popular bird to keep as pets. Trapping wild Goldfinches was big business and led to a significant crash in the wild population. It as only until 1933 when the Society for the Protection of Birds (now know as the RSPB) fought against the practise of selling wild birds and made it illegal that the population started to recover.
•Goldfinches can be found in a number of religious artworks from the Italian Renaissance. Because of its favourite food the thistle, the bird was associated with Christ's crown of thorns and was often referred to as the saviour bird.
Recommended Food
Sunflower Hearts.
Great Spotted Woodpecker
General Information
•The Great Spotted Woodpecker grows to a length of 23cm, a wingspan of 39cm and weighs up to 85g. There are around 140,000 breeding pairs in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The Woodpecker is famous for its rapid, loud drumming on tree trucks. It's capable of this because of a shock-absorbent tissue between the base of the bill and their skull which cushions the impact. Unpaired males can drum around 600 times a day in search of a female.
•In the spring Great Spotted Woodpeckers pierce the bark of birch trees and drink the sap that flows from the trunk.
•The Woodpecker has an extraordinary tongue that can extend 40mm beyond its beak. It does this thanks to its hyoid bone which has flexible horns that wrap around the skull and can be moved forward to extend the reach of their tongue.
Recommended Food
Premium Peanuts.
Great Tit
General Information
•The Great Tit grows to a length of 14cm, a wingspan of 24cm and weigh 18g. There are around 2.5 million breeding territories in the UK.
Fun Facts
•Research has found that the most successful and dominant male Great Tits have a thicker black strip down their chest.
•UK Great Tits seem to be evolving a longer beak compared to their European species. This is thought to be down to the abundance of garden bird feeders over here, which is helping them feed from feeders more effectively.
•Great Tits are actually a very aggressive bird. They have been documented picking on exhausted migrant Goldcrests, killing flycatchers for their nests, killing redpolls and yellowhammers at a feeding station in Finland and killing hibernating bats in Hungary for food.
Recommended Food
No Mess Bird Seed Mix.
Greenfinch
General Information
•The Greenfinch grows to a length of 15cm, a wingspan of 26cm and weighs up to 28g. There are around 1.7 million breeding pairs in the UK.
Fun Facts
•Greenfinches have been recorded to travel 2000km away from their birthplace. But British breeding birds rarely travel further than 20km.
•The population of Greenfinches dramatically dropped in 2006 when a disease called Trichomonosis appeared which severally affected Greenfinches. The disease made them very lethargic and caused them difficulty swallowing food, usually resulting in death within days.
•The Greenfinch is one of the most widely distributed birds in Europe. Where nearly all their local names refer to the Greenfinch's colour, including Green Linnet and Green Grosbeak.
Recommended Food
Black Sunflower Seeds.
House Sparrow
General Information
•The House Sparrow grows to a length of 15cm, a wingspan of 25cm and weighs up to 38g. There are around 5.3 million breeding pairs in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The House Sparrow is highly adaptable. This is proven by the discovery of them living and breeding 2000ft underground in a coal mine. Others have also been found to live their entire lives within warehouses.
•House Sparrows occupy every continent except Antarctica. They were introduced to North America from Europe in 1850 to combat Linden Moth Caterpillars that infested trees in New York. Now there is an estimated 150 million House Sparrows covering the continent.
•The size of the black bib on a male's chest can be an easy sign of the male's age and dominance in the group. The larger the bib the more likely that the male is an older more dominant male within their social ranking.
Recommended Food
Premium Bird Seed Mix.
Long Tailed Tit
General Information
•Long Tailed Tits grow to a length of 14cm, a wingspan of 19cm and weigh up to 10g. There are around 340,000 breeding territories in the UK.
Fun Facts
•A single flock of Long Tailed Tits usually consists of around 6 to 20 birds. But it has been known for them to reach flocks of 50 birds in the winter months.
•The Long Tailed Tit is different from others of it's family in both behaviour and appearance. However, it is more closely related to Babblers of Africa and south-east Asia.
•Long Tailed Tits are a tiny bird not only in size but especially weight. In fact this bird fully grown weighs less than a £1 coin.
Recommended Food
Premium Fat Balls.
Robin
General Information
•The Robin grows to a length of 14cm, a wingspan of 22cm and weighs up to 21g. There are around 6.7 million breeding territories in the UK.
Fun Facts
•The Robin to most people is an adorable bird which can do no harm, but to their own kind they are ruthless. These birds are highly territorial. Most disputes are often settled by song or body language, but fights do breakout, some of which can go to the death.
•Robins use ants and millipedes as an insecticide to get rid of mites and ticks. They do this by catching the insect between its bill. The helpless invertebrate then releases its chemical defence weapon which the Robin then rubs all over its feathers relieving it of parasites.
•The red breast of an adult Robin is used like a territorial flag. Juveniles purposely don't develop a red breast until several weeks after they've fledged the nest. This minimises the risk of them being attacked by their own parents post fledging.
Recommended Food
Robin Delight Mix.
Starling
General Information
•The Starling grows to a length of 21cm, a wingspan of 42cm and weigh up to 90g. There are around 1.8 million breeding adults in the UK.
Fun Facts
•Starlings are famous for their large murmurations. The largest starling murmuration ever recorded was in Somerset UK with an astonishing 6 million birds participating. Although, it is thought that Rome may attract even more birds.
•The Starling population is one of the most drastically declining of any bird in the UK with the population of these birds falling around 66% since the mid 1970s causing them to be red-listed as a bird of conservation concern. The cause for this is still unknown.
•Starlings are great mimics. They are well known for mimicking other bird songs, but they have also been known to mimic many mechanical sounds too such as car alarms.
Recommended Food
Dried Mealworms.
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