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The Dunnock..... as the title suggests is also known as the little brown job. However as the images below show us its far from a little undescript brown bird.

It has a remarkably varied and flexible mating system. Sometimes a territory supports just two birds, male and female which co-operate in rearing the young. However, a male with a good quality territory will sometimes attract and mate with two or even three females. More typically though, it is the female who tries to mate with more than one male since any male she has mated with then helps in the feeding of the young. If two males have mated with the same female they may merge their territories and co-operate in defending a 'super-territory'. If lots of 'extra-marital' copulations take place you can have territories in which each female has more than one male but the males have mated with more than one female and are therefore attending two broods simultaneously. In a system with so much 'infidelity' the males have to be careful that they don't end up feeding a brood which is entirely someone else's offspring. This explains why, before mating, the male will peck at the cloaca of the female stimulating a pumping action. If the female has recently mated with another male this pumping will push out the bag of sperms which have just been deposited.

I have a very healthy population of dunnocks in my garden, with a record count of a dozen a few summers ago. Although often a skulking species they are very charasmatic and fun to watch.... often on the receiving end of terrirorial rants from the resident Robins. Its a shame that this species can be so underrated as this bird has the most wonderful song when it is in full voice during the spring and is as melodic as any garden species we have in the UK......