5in the sky

JiJim MMoiri picksicks hhis favourite birds to look out for this winter

1 ROBIN

Robins are lovely little birds, but they’re very belligerent. They don’t mingle with their families, and they’re scrappers. They used to be called ruddocks: the name “Robin Redbreast” was given to them because people thought they looked like the uniformed Victorian postal workers delivering Christmas cards.

2 SPARROW

We have three different sparrows in Britain: the house sparrow (pictured) — the one that everyone sees; the tree sparrow and then the dunnock, which is not necessarily a sparrow, but when I was young we knew it as a hedge sparrow. It’s called a dunnock as it’s dun brown and small.

3 WAXWING

The waxwing is quite opposite to the robin. They like to hang around in little groups of about seven with the dominant male and female, the Mr and Mrs if you like, in the middle. They go for red berries, which is very Christmassy, and they’ll share them with their friends and family. A very attractive bird, they have a crest and a kind of bank robber’s mask marking with bright yellow and red on the wings. They come from Scandinavia in winter, looking for berries, especially on the east coast in the north. Perhaps this should be the Christmas bird?

4 STARLING

They’re a much-maligned bird, but a starling murmuration is one of the great natural wonders of the world. They do it throughout the winter, especially in places with somewhere like a pier where they can roost, like Brighton. You get plenty of these in Scotland and they have fantastic colour. The males are orangey-pinky red and the females are yellow, and they’ve got a crossed bill, as the name suggests. In fact, this is the only British bird with a crossed beak.