Help identifying unusual garden bird.

briany

My mother, who is quite a bird watching enthusiast, spotted an unusual bird in her garden recently. According to her, it was roughly the size of a sparrow but solid yellow -lemon- in colour with a dark beak. Google searches on this description have only yielded chaffinches and yellowhammers etc. but these birds are not quite solid yellow as described. She also said it was acting wild which probably negates the possibility of an escaped canary.

The sighting was in the morning time in Dublin, in a fairly rural area about two months ago. Any ideas?

Kess73

Yellowhammer, siskin, and wood warbler are what come to mind for me if I discount the more obvious garden birds that have some yellow on them.


Yellowhammers can be quite vivid in colour though and during the summer months they can be as yellow as a canary so your mother's sighting in June or so would tie in with that.



They can go a lot more yellow in May/June that the one in this pic

V_Moth

There are relatively few bright yellow birds likely to visit gardens. Greenfinch, Goldfinch and Yellowhammer are the most obvious ones. The other option would be something like an escaped cage bird, which in some cases can adapt quite quickly to life in the wild. See the hybrid Canary x Greenfinch here at top right for example.

More unlikely is a bird with excessive yellow in the plumage (flavicism), which I have occasionally seen in Chaffinch and other finches.

V Bull

Might also be a Willow Warbler, I have a family that visit my garden from time-to-time...



Another suggestion might be a Grey Wagtail (usually only if there is water around)..



Or a Siskin..



I hope this helps...

briany

Yeah it does give me some ideas. Thanks for the replies so far V Bull, V_Moth and Kess73. It's still a possibility that it was an adapted bird like a canary or a mutation. It was also mentioned to me that a bird of the same description was seen during the snowy weather at the end of 2010 by a cousin of mine in Rush. It's probable that any yellow bird would look striking against that kind of backdrop.

I doubt it was the hybrid Canary-Greenfinch as that appears to have light beak whereas the one described to me had a dark one. Remember though that this was only how the bird was described to me which is all I have to go on so it's possible, as with all things remembered, that one or two details could be off and maybe it is indeed one of the birds shown/mentioned in the posts above. I'll do a few Google searches with the information here and see what else I can find.

Thanks for the help.

cuddlycavies

Rare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Oriole

V_Moth

cuddlycavies wrote: »

Rare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Oriole

Unfortunately it is the size of a Magpie and not a Sparrow. Also, it is a rather secretive species tending to hide away in the canopy of large trees.

kincsem

briany wrote: »

My mother, who is quite a bird watching enthusiast, spotted an unusual bird in her garden recently. According to her, it was roughly the size of a sparrow but solid yellow -lemon- in colour with a dark beak. Google searches on this description have only yielded chaffinches and yellowhammers etc. but these birds are not quite solid yellow as described. She also said it was acting wild which probably negates the possibility of an escaped canary.

The sighting was in the morning time in Dublin, in a fairly rural area about two months ago. Any ideas?

I saw something similar at my sunflower feeders a few years ago. I thought I was seeing things but found a lemony yellow feather a few days later.