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

[senmut]

Sadly, all I can see is Wren, as it looks so much like the ones we had as 'boarders' in the unused mail box this year. But I'm American.

[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.

[yourlibrarian]

It looks rather like our house sparrows but I don't imagine that's it given where you live.

[prettyarbitrary]

It looks like a female house finch to me. The size sounds about right.

[kiki_eng]

I also threw it at a wildlife identification app to see what the algorithm would tell me - iNaturalist thinks that it's an Accentor (Genus Prunella - includes Dunnocks) but the photo algorithm doesn't always get things right. I find that if you submit an observation to iNaturalist birders are pretty quick to identify a thing if the pictures are at all reasonable, so that would be my rec.

[violsva]

Is it a juvenile sparrow or something? I wouldn't expect it at this time of year, but I am not an ornithologist.

[wendles]

If it weren't December I'd say it was a young dunnock, since they don't get the excellent grey eyebrows till they mature; but it seems awfully late in the year for a juvenile still to be around.

[ravena_kade]

you seem to have a mystery.

[adore]

SO CUTE!

[scytale]

What a beauty! I hope she keeps visiting.