Prunella modularis
Silhouette: Matt Wilkins · PhyloPic
In 3 days ~70% in a week ~90%
The dunnock (Prunella modularis) is a small passerine, or perching bird, found throughout temperate Europe and into Asian Russia. Dunnocks have also been introduced and become common in New Zealand. It is the most widespread member of the accentor family; most other accentors are limited to mountain habitats. Other, largely archaic, English names for the dunnock include hedge accentor, hedge sparrow, hedge warbler, and titling.
The dunnock was described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae. He coined the binomial name of Motacilla modularis. The specific epithet is from the Latin modularis "modulating" or "singing". This species is now placed in the genus Prunella that was introduced by the French ornithologist Louis Pierre Vieillot in 1816.
The name "dunnock" comes from the English dun (dingy brown, dark-coloured) and the diminutive form of bird ock (thus, the original "little brown bird"), while "accentor" is from post-classical Latin and means a person who sings with another. The genus name Prunella is from the German Braunelle, "dunnock", a diminutive of braun, "brown".
Seven subspecies are accepted by the IOC... Wikipedia →
| # | City | Country | Daily sighting probability |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 2 | Manchester | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 3 | Birmingham | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 4 | London | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 5 | Leeds | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | |
| 6 | Cologne | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 7 | Dublin | 🇮🇪 Ireland | |
| 8 | Essen | 🇩🇪 Germany | |
| 9 | Brussels | 🇧🇪 Belgium | |
| 10 | Paris | 🇫🇷 France |
Possible
About 30% of wildlife watchers report a Dunnock sighting in Brussels on a given day, based on 341 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 21st most-seen of the 93 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 70%, and over a week to about 90%, if each day is a fresh chance.
March and April
In those months about 50% of wildlife watchers report a Dunnock in Brussels on a given day, against about 10% in August, the lowest month.
Between 9 am and noon
Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Dunnock sightings with a recorded time, and about 9 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.
9th of 46
Of the 46 cities where we can rate Dunnock sightings, Brussels ranks 9th at about 30%. The best odds are in Liverpool (United Kingdom, about 70%), Manchester (United Kingdom, about 60%) and Birmingham (United Kingdom, about 50%).
Same order: Passeriformes
The closest relatives of the Dunnock that you can see in Brussels (order Passeriformes, Perching Birds) are Carrion Crow (about 90%), Eurasian Magpie (about 80%) and Great Tit (about 80%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.
GBIF citizen-science records
It is estimated from how often the Dunnock is recorded against all the birds logged in Brussels (341 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.
