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Getting to Know Your Garden Birds

The best birdwatching in Britain costs nothing at all. You do not need a hide, a long lens or a drive to a nature reserve — just a window, a mug of something warm and a little patience. Birds are at their busiest in the first hour after sunrise and again in the hour before dusk, so those are the times to settle down and watch. Sit still, keep a few metres back from the glass, and resist the urge to open the door. Within a fortnight you will start to recognise individual visitors by their habits long before you identify them by their markings.

Start with four families. Master the robin, the blue tit, the blackbird and the finches and you will be able to name almost everything that lands on your lawn or feeder this weekend.

The Robin: Small, Bold and Always Watching

The robin is Britain's most familiar garden bird, and the easiest to identify. Look for the rounded orange-red breast, brown back and bright dark eye. Both males and females wear the red bib, so you cannot sex them by colour. Robins are fiercely territorial and sing almost all year, including through mild winter nights under street lighting — that thin, silvery song at 3am in January is usually a robin.

Their behaviour gives them away. A robin will follow you around the garden as you dig, dropping onto freshly turned soil within seconds to snatch worms and grubs. They feed close to the ground, so a low tray or a scattering of food on a paved corner suits them far better than a high hanging feeder.

• Favourite food: mealworms, suet crumbs, grated mild cheese, small seeds
• Where to feed: ground trays, low tables, beside a shrub for quick cover
• Song: thin, wistful, high-pitched phrases; also a sharp ticking alarm

Blue Tits and Great Tits: The Acrobats

Blue tits are unmistakable once you have seen one properly: a sky-blue cap, white cheeks, a black line through the eye, a lemon-yellow breast and blue-green wings. They are the gymnasts of the feeder, happily hanging upside down from a peanut cage while a queue forms behind them. They arrive in loose family parties, chattering constantly, and will empty a sunflower heart feeder with impressive speed.

Great tits are bigger and more formal-looking, with a glossy black head, bold white cheek patches and a black stripe running down a yellow belly — wider on males. Their spring song is a clear, ringing two-note call, often written as "tea-cher, tea-cher", though some birds sound uncannily like a squeaky bicycle pump.

• Blue tit: sunflower hearts, peanuts, suet balls; nest box hole about 25mm
• Great tit: similar diet, slightly bolder at the table; nest box hole about 32mm
• Best spot: hanging feeders near a hedge or tree, roughly two metres off the ground

The Blackbird: Music from the Rooftop

The male blackbird is jet black with a striking orange-yellow bill and matching eye-ring. The female is brown, mottled and streaked across the breast, and is regularly mistaken for a thrush — she is simply a female blackbird, and she has no song to speak of.

Her partner, however, is one of our finest songsters. He sings from a high perch, often a chimney pot or television aerial, delivering rich, fluting phrases that sound unhurried and slightly melancholy. Listen for the pause between phrases, then the low, mellow notes that follow. If you hear a sharp, metallic "chink" from the undergrowth, that is the blackbird's alarm call, and it usually means a cat is on the move.

Blackbirds are ground feeders. Watch one on the lawn, head cocked, listening for worms, or flicking through fallen leaves beneath a shrub. They will take food from a bird table but rarely from a hanging feeder.

• Favourite food: worms, windfall apples, soaked raisins, suet
• Where to feed: a ground tray close to cover, or halved apples on the lawn
• Song: low, rich, fluting phrases; a loud tutting alarm when disturbed

Finches: Colour, Chatter and Fine Seed

Finches are seed specialists, and a small-seed feeder will bring them in reliably through the colder months. The chaffinch is the most common: pinkish-brown breast, blue-grey crown and two bold white wing bars that flash as it hops about on the ground. Its song is a confident cascade of notes ending in a flourish.

The goldfinch is the showstopper, with a crimson face, a broad gold bar across each wing and neat black and white markings. Goldfinches feed in twittering flocks and adore nyjer seed from a fine-port feeder, though sunflower hearts work just as well. In winter they will strip the seeds from teasels and lavender left standing.

Greenfinches are chunky and greenish, with flashes of yellow on the wing edges, and a wheezy, drawn-out song that sounds like a small door creaking. Bullfinches are shyer and less frequent visitors, but if a male appears — black cap, rosy breast — you will know him at once.

Making Your Garden Work for Them

A few simple changes will transform the number of birds you see. Variety is the key: different species feed at different heights and on different foods, so offer ground trays, a table and at least one hanging feeder.

• Water matters most. A shallow dish, refreshed daily, attracts more species than any feeder — including birds that never eat seed.
• Clean feeders every fortnight with hot soapy water and rinse well. Dirty feeders spread disease quickly in a busy garden.
• Plant for cover. A hedge, ivy, a dense shrub or a small tree gives birds somewhere to retreat and nest. Leave a corner untidy.
• Skip the tidy-up. Seed heads, fallen leaves and a small log pile provide food and invertebrates all winter.
• Avoid suet in warm weather, and never put out salted food, milk or mouldy bread.

Finally, give it time. A new feeder often sits untouched for two or three weeks while birds work out that it is there. Once the first blue tit finds it, the word travels fast — and you will have your own small, noisy, endlessly entertaining community to watch with your morning tea.