These yellowhammers, a male and a female, flew into a window at Liss, Hampshire in 1993. The male is more brightly coloured than the female.
Yellowhammers are a member of the bunting family and are thought to get their name from the German word for bunting ‘ammer’.
Adults feed mainly on seeds and grain throughout the year, but they also feed on insects and other invertebrates when providing for their chicks. Their numbers have declined since the 1980s, possibly due to a mixture of the use of herbicides and pesticides and changes in land management. ’.
The song of the male yellowhammer is said to sound like “A little bit of bread and no cheese" and is mentioned in Enid Blyton’s ‘Rockingdown Mystery’ as a ‘little trill of the yellow-hammer’.