Boring? Never.

I’d met up with Andy for another ringing session at Oakenclough and where surely we would find a few fresh migrants on this the Fifth of April? The wind was in the North-West and at 0630 and 0.5° it wasn't especially warm. 

A glance at the weather map portrayed a stream of warm air partly headed our way from Iberia with maybe an outside chance of a few new birds although few migrants had yet reached the North West. 

Thursday 5th April 

Our catch was on-par for recent weeks. In other words not so good with just 12 birds caught and still zero warblers - 3 Siskin, 3 Goldfinch, 2 Blue Tit, 1 Coal Tit, 1 Great Tit, 1 Lesser Redpoll, 1 Dunnock. 

Siskin 

Lesser Redpoll 

We don’t catch many Dunnocks at Oakenclough but today’s bird proved to be a female in early breeding condition.

Dunnock

The name Dunnock comes from the old English words dunnakos/dunoke or donek, meaning ‘little brown one'. Dun = dingy brown, dark-coloured. Ock = diminutive. Its scientific name Prunella modularis translates as ‘little brown singer'.

It has other English and Irish names such as the wren's brother, mother-in-law, field sparrow, black wren, grey robin and hedge warbler. In Scotland one of its common names is blue-dykie - more of that later.

The Dunnock is the persona non grata of the bird world - mostly uninteresting to birders, ignored, unloved and unwanted; especially so when out it pops from the hedgerow where a rare LBJ is rumoured to be. The Dunnock deserves few mentions on bird blogs, barely a frame on You Tube and never a photo on Bird Guides’ Best. And wait in vain for a pager message or urgent tweet about the dismal, drab and dowdy Dunnock.

A Dunnock spends its days lurking mostly unseen in dark corners of suburban gardens or feeding surreptitiously under bird feeders when the glamorous birds have left the feast.  Its song is unhurried and unremarkable; a warble which to the inexperienced or hard-of-hearing can be confused with the Wren, Robin or Common Whitethroat but one which lacks the Wren's intensity, the Robin's sweetness or the scratchy tones of the Whitethroat.

But fear not dear reader. The lacklustre Dunnock does have a trick or two up its feathered trouser legs, as many a ringer will relate. The identical male and female Dunnock are to all intents and purposes monomorphic - identical when even simple biometrics prove unhelpful in separating one sex from the other. Until that is the breeding season when the male displays its most obvious attributes that go toward the legendary sex life of the dreary old Dunnock. Multiple mating systems including monogamy, polyandry and polygyny - you name it, they do it.

You see, there’s more to a boring Dunnock than meets the unwelcoming eye. I do think that Mr Dunnock would agree.

Linking today to World Bird Wednesday,  Anni's Birding and Eileen's Saturday.