Dunnock

This Dunnock is about to be released, having been ringed in Heene Cemetery on March 15th 2021.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Prunella modularis
Family: 
Accentors
Family Latin name: 
PRUNELLIDAE
Category: 
Birds
Vernacular names: 

Shufflewing

Species description

Species description

Once referred to as the Hedge Sparrow, it is not related to the Sparrows, and has maintained its numbers rather better, with 2.5 million pairs in 2016.  However, this is quite a decline, and so it has a conservation status of RED.  It is a resident breeder, and Winter visitor.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)

Details

Species family information

Accentors are small, unobtrusive brown birds, that live mainly by omnivorous ground foraging. Well they may be unobtrusive, for they have a bewildering variety of breeding strategies, monogamy (1M+1F) and polygamy, and the latter may be polygyny (1M+2 or more F), polyandry (1F+2 or more M), or polygynandry (2 or more M+2 or more F). They must be among our most permanently exhausted birds.

Category information

The earliest feathered dinosaur fossils date from the early Cretaceous, but the ancestry of birds goes further back to Jurassic theropod dinosaurs, which shared a common ancestor with the crocodilians. Well known theropod groups include the tyrannosaurs, allosaurs, and other carnivores. Of surviving bird groups, the most ancient are the ratites (ostriches, rheas, tinamous, moas, kiwis, cassowaries, and emus), followed in evolutionary order by the waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) and then the land fowl (chickens, turkeys, pheasants and their kin). Heene cemetery’s most ancient bird visitors are the woodpigeons. Strictly, therefore, we ought to refer to birds as dinosaurs, for they are direct descendants. The RSPB would be more accurately restyled as the RSPD. Where known, the conservation status of each bird is given as red, amber, or green, according to its survival potential based on 2016 populations and recent population trends.

Birds are warm-blooded, and have feathers, toothless, beaked jaws, and a strong, lightweight skeleton. They lay hard-shelled eggs. Their hearts have four chambers, and their metabolic rate is high. Although most are adapted for flight, many can also run, jump, swim and dive. Flightless birds retain vestigial wings. Brown, green, and grey are the commonest bird colours, for camouflage.

Protections