Dunnock

Portrait of an underrated bird.

The Dunnock is the bird that people fail to notice. It doesn't always make itself that obvious often hidden in a hedge or moving around the ground more like a mouse than a bird.

They have a lovely sweet song and famously a very busy social life with lots of complicated relationships.

The British Trust for Ornithology used the Dunnock in an interesting way when analysing bird observation reports for their Bird Atlas. The inclusion of a Dunnock in a species list report was used as a positive quality measure of the effort put in by the observer. Very clever really.

The Dunnock is worth a second look