| FIRECREST | One of UK's smallest birds ... from sack on ridge (9) |
| WREN | Formerly depicted on the reverse of a farthing, one of Britain's smallest birds (4) |
| WRENS | UK's second-smallest birds after goldcrests, Latin name Troglodytes troglodytes (5) |
| QUELEAS | Canadian province in short has almost the smallest birds |
| GOLDCREST | Weighing about the same as a 20p piece, the UK's smallest bird and a national symbol of Luxembourg (9) |
| BOXGIRDER | Fight on ridge running by river, and beam (3,6) |
| ANTICLINE | Opposed to creating initial queue on ridge |
| LITTLEOWL | Often depicted with the goddess of wisdom Athena (hence its binomial nomenclature), the smallest bird in the Strigidae family found in Britain (6,3) |
| METOFFICE | Founded in 1854 by Robert FitzRoy who was captain of HMS Beagle when Darwin was aboard, the name of UK's national weather service since 2000 (3,6) |
| LONDONERS | residents of UK's capital |
| MERLIN | Known collectively as an illusion and sometimes laying its eggs in an old crow's nest, a falcon or "pigeon hawk" of heather moorland that is the UK's smallest bird of prey (6) |
| TIVERTON | Devon town and name of one of UK'S three staghound packs (8) |
| MARES | Scottish waterfall near Moffat, one of UK's highest (4,5,4) |
| TAIL | Scottish waterfall near Moffat, one of UK's highest (4,5,4) |
| GREY | Scottish waterfall near Moffat, one of UK's highest (4,5,4) |
| SHARP | Nigel ___, one of UK's finest big carp anglers (5) |
| NIGEL | --- Sharp, one of UK's finest big carp anglers (5) |
| THEROSIE | N.Wales lake: one of UK's best crucian waters (*theories) (3,5) |
| SCROLL | Spiral form of parchment from sack oddly on register (6) |
| WELLS | One of the UK's smallest cities; or, the author of The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds (5) |
