A Little Bit of Bread ......

....... and No Cheese!!!!!!

Is supposed to be the Yellowhammers' call (made popular by author Enid Blyton in her children's books) ...... putting out all this seed on Friday (and replenishing/replacing the feeders) has brought quite a lot of birds to the garden - I nearly missed this one and only saw him because I was trying to get a clear shot of a male Chaffinch and caught sight of him through the lens - scanned the garden but he was the only one!

A Bigger Hammer

Yellowhammer Factoids:

The Yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella) is a passerine bird in the bunting family Emberizidae. It is a robust 15.5-17 cm long bird, with a thick seed-eater's bill. The male has a bright yellow head, yellow underparts, and a heavily streaked brown back. The female is much duller, and more streaked below.

Its natural diet consists of insects when feeding young, and otherwise seeds. The nest is on the ground. 3-6 eggs are laid, which show the hair-like markings characteristic of those of buntings.

Beethoven admitted he got the idea for the first four notes of his 5th symphony from the yellowhammer's call. The bird prefaces the last, lower, note with 5 or more notes - instead of Beethoven's three - and occasionally sings the last note higher than the others.

The Yellowhammer was introduced to New Zealand in 1862 and is now common and widespread there too.


Other Names

Gaelic: Buidheag-bhealaidh

Welsh: Melyr yr Eithin

Danish: Gulspurv

Dutch: Geelgors

Finnish: Keltasirkku

French: Bruant jaune

German: Goldammer

Hungarian: Citromsármány

Icelandic: Gultittlingur

Irish: Buíóg

Italian: Zigolo giallo

Norwegian: Gulspurv

Polish: Trznadel zwyczajny

Portuguese: Escrevedeira-amarela

Spanish: Escribano cerillo

Swedish: Gulsparv

Local Name: Yellow Bunting



Jenny Wren thanks you for all your comments and stars yesterday - she is even more puffed up with pride now!


34/52 of my personal birdie challenge 2013



NIKON D5200 : f/5.6 1/200" : 300mm : ISO 400