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Hi guys. I was walking back from work yesterday in the west London area and I heard a strange bird noise coming from a tall tree. I couldn't see the bird unfortunately, but I was hoping someone could identify it from the call! It sounded like a small frog/cricket, was calling in sets...

I was recently told this bird that appeared in my garden (on top of a dead pigeon!) was a Sparrowhawk rather than a Goshawk. I found it difficult to tell the difference when consulting a guide. How does one tell that this is definitely a Sparrowhawk? Thanks a lot.

Hello - I was lucky enough to have a ticket for the Paralympics on Saturday, and while sitting in the gods watching the wheelchair rugby in the basketball arena, a v interesting bird swooshed past - mainly dark, black brownish wings with a dramatically white rump. Bird had distinctive slightly curved...

Hello everyone, I'm a newcomer to the UK and just beginning to come to grips with the bird scene here. (Here's a bird ID puzzle for you overseas travellers: can you guess by my avatar where I come from??) I'm visiting Bath at the moment and did the National Trust's excellent Bath...

Can anyone help. Spends a lot of time on the ground. Not a Songthrush. Not a baby Blackbird.

We were ready to give this up as a Meadow Pipit, but looking again, not sure it's not a Tree Pipit. Spotted last night on the heath of the New Forest right on the edge of a dense woodland. What do people think?

Hi all, I spotted this little one in the shadows. Couldn't see what it was until I got it up on the computer. I'm guessing that it is a Redstart? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I also have a couple of more birds to ID but the photos are pretty bad, so I am exploring to see if...

I have a recording of a small brown? bird that was singing primarily a string of single notes whilst being bounced around by the wind in the top of a tall contorted willow. The light was such that the bird was only a siloette. It seemed to be about the size of a sparrow, but boy was it loud. If there...

I have very a noisy bird that has just arrived in my garden that I have never seen before. It has not stopped still long enough to get a photo of it or even to get a good look at it. It is flying around very fast from tree to tree. It is bigger than a black bird but not bigger than...

Apologies for the poor quality image, the camera and lens were stretched to the limit as I couldn't get very close to the birds. First time I have seen this bird. There was a large flock in a nearby field coming and going over a couple of days. The closest match i can find on the RSPB Identifier...

Hi, we have this friendly little fellow living in our garden, in a hedge and generally around and under anything when it rains, he really has been this scruffy all winter though he loves bread crumbs, seeds and cake crumbs:-). He will feed off the ground or off the patio table. He holds his own with...

Hi. Our cousin is working in India at the moment. She sends back lots of bird pics for us to ID, but this one has got us stumped. Anyone good on birds of India??

Saw what I identified as a Hen Harrier this afternoon, at Stocks Golf Club outside Albury, Herts. From a distance it looked like a pigeon, but it was unmistakeably a bird of prey, with a hooked beak. Thoughts?

Hello... I'm new to this game and know practically nothing about birds. I've spotted a couple of birds in my garden that I initially thought were sparrows (as we have loads of sparrows around, both House and the other one) but I'm not so sure after taking a photo or two. The first one...

I ran across these birds and I was wondering if anyone could help me identify them. The first one looks very much like a small hawfinch, but its wings are all brown (the white and black parts are below, in the belly near the legs and the tail) and its beak is off-white. For the second one, I have no...

Hi HilaryJ If you choose 'duck-like' for beak shape and 'yes' to brown feathers, female scaup and tufted duck both appear in the results. (if you choose 'urban' for habitat, it eliminates scaup as you're much less likely to see one in a town or city) Thanks Katie

Thanks for the feedback. We've had the bird identifier since 2007 (I think), starting with just garden birds and expanding it after a year. I've tried the searches you mentioned: Herring gull - chose 'bigger than mallard' and grey and brown feathers, and it worked Stonechat...

Well... the bird identifier is a webpage, not a skilled human being, so it's never going to be quite the same. If you only pick 'urban' you'll get all sorts of things, from gulls to grey herons to goldcrests (and also the species you mention). It's more effective if you give it...

I would be very surprised if it was a hoopoe but you never know. I once saw one in Spain while playing golf, a very distinctive bird and beautiful to see.

I've seen many Wheatears during my walks in the Scottish countryside and there I was looking at a small dark coloured bird with a white rump......but I wasn't in Scotland, or even on land, I was on a ship crossing the North Sea, about half way between Norway and Northern England...and it was...

This bird has been around the garden for the past 2 days, always with other Sparrows. It doesn't act or look like a juvenile. What causes this strange colour?