Anyone any idea

[cmcmck]

Who this little chap is? He's been visiting our front area for some days. Smaller than a sparrow or dunnock but bigger than a wren with an insectivore's beak and beautiful regular markings. Obviously European and a British known species as that's where we are.







Update

Thanks to the_godiva  for a lead. The little visitor is a female little bunting according to our bird recognition books.

Our gravel covered front area obviously contains lots of things to her liking. :o)

 

Comments

[iddewes]

I put the photo through an app I have for identifying wildlife and that said it was a dunnock? I’m in Germany so we generally have a lot of the same birds.

[cmcmck]

Not a dunnock as we have them as regular visitors and this guy is too small and has the wrong sort of beak.

[iddewes]

I asked my friend who knows a lot about birds too and she also thought dunnock but she said it looked very puffed up. Hope someone else knows.
Oh she also came up with pipit but it should have gone south for the winter then.

[cmcmck]

We did wonder about pipits but as you say,they should have left us by now.

[full_metal_ox]

Two words: climate change.

[cmcmck]

You may well be right as our starlings usually migrate (locally to the south) but the big bachelor juvenile groups are still about eating us out of house and home as are our blackbirds.