goldfinch – Enviro-Mentalist

Charming Goldfinches

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a complete lack of greenfinches in their garden this winter. I know the Big Garden Birdwatch has seen a big drop, but I can’t remember the last time I saw one anywhere, even in the country park.

What I do get a lot of are goldfinches – one of my favourite birds (although they are not as high up as bullfinches and long-tailed tits). We tend to get at least four or five a day in the winter, but we’ve had up to two dozen – quite a lot with only one bird feeder – but I have plans for next year… In the summer we tend to get some adults and fledglings in the garden, the chicks staying with us for some time. You can usually tell they’ve arrived by the cacophony of begging noises coming from outside.

However, whilst watching the birds I started to wonder if it would be possible to tell how many individuals come into the garden. I think the short answer is going to be not a chance, but it did lead me to wonder if there is an easy way to tell males and females apart.

According to many websites, yes you can. The males have more extensive red masks and black feathers around their beaks – the females also have shorter wings and white or grey feathers around their beaks. There is also a difference in the extent of the brown on their wings. Not simple, but doable with some effort. It was then that I came across and excellent blog by a bird ringer who dispelled all of these myths with examples of birds he’d caught and sexed with certainty (and there were plenty even he couldn’t be sure about).

However, there are some differences I have spotted, such as the size of the white spots on the wing tips and, how white they are. I am not sure if this will change with time, along with the black tip to some of the beaks – so it will be worth checking again in the summer when the only birds about will be adults. See the photos below – goldfinch 1 has mainly white spots with a hint of beige, but goldfinch 2 has spots that are much closer to beige than brown.

More work required methinks, ho hum, I will just have to stand at the window watching birds for hours.

However, as these charming birds are not very long lived in the wild it is probably just as well that I can’t differentiate them.

BTW if you wondered, apparently the name charm for a flock of goldfinches comes from the noise they make rather than their appearance.

Garden Birds

I spent a considerable amount of time today cleaning the bird feeders. This is my own fault as it is a task I have neglected for some time, but I have given the birds the last of the live mealworms, so it seemed a good time to clean them all out.

I have restocked the ground feeder with sunflower hearts, and, to soften the blow added some dried mealworms (as well as some sawfly larvae I found on the gooseberry, har di har). The sparrows ate the mealworms (and, I hope, the little green devil larvae), but are now turning their nose up at the sunflower hearts.

The main feeder though has been a site of much feathery activity, with goldfinches, a robin, chaffinches and a bullfinch all visiting this afternoon. Apart, that is, from when I had my camera with me trying to take their pictures.

These are the best I managed whilst hiding in the washing that I was drying in an environmentally friendly way (which meant it doubled as a bird hide).

The bullfinch (of which I did not get a picture this time) has become a regular visitor this month, and even showed up with a lady bullfinch the other day, I am hoping they may decide to stay.

Early(ish) Morning Birdwatching.

A great morning’s birdwatching today – a large number of sparrows, young and adults, blackbirds a-plenty, chaffinches, greenfinches, bickering goldfinches, great tits, blue tits, a dunnock – the only thing missing was a robin and Walter the pigeon. Yes, these were all in my garden whilst I had my breakfast – I was so interested in the behaviour of the different birds, particularly the three young goldfinches, that I was nearly late for work (never mind).

One of the goldfinches was quite shy and was easily pushed out of the way, another sat inside the ground feeder quietly eating away at the sunflower hearts in there, ignoring the raucous sparrows, and the third, is the most aggressive of the lot, chased away nearly all the other birds that tried to evict him from the feeder. Most that is, apart from a male bullfinch, one of the highlights of the morning, looking beautiful against a rare blue sky, one of the prettiest birds, and one that hasn’t visited the garden for a couple of years.

Just in case anyone is wondering why I am constantly going on about the birds, firstly they really bring the garden to life, and, secondly, it stops me getting morose about all of the slug damage going down (they are picking on my beans and salad crops now that they have finished off the courgette, cosmos and sunflowers).

A day in the garden.

A dry day in the garden gave us time to catch up with a few bits and pieces and take note of what was growing well (notably not the courgette which is now completely lacking leaves). The tomatoes (Gardener’s Delight and Beefeater) have now been planted into larger tubs, as has my remaining courgette. Sweet Peppers (Mini Bell and Sweet Nardello) as well as Chilli Peppers (Heatwave and Hungarian Hot Wax) were also put into larger pots, but, following a trip to Ryton Organic Gardens last year, in smaller pots than in past years in the hope that they may be more successful. These last may be transplanted to the front of the house once we have finished the front garden to try to ripen the fruit.

Also seemingly growing well were the families of both goldfinches and greenfinches which arrived in the garden this morning, presumably recently fledged (one young goldfinch and four young greenfinches). They were much quieter than the baby sparrows, and, generally quite well behaved.

Big Garden Birdwatch Results

The results of the big garden birdwatch were released this week and seem to reflect a lot of my own observations this Winter. Although the average number of birds counted has dropped since the first survey in 1979, there are some success stories. The most noticeable of these has been the rise of the goldfinch which sits in tenth position (replacing the greenfinch which drops down to eleventh – reflecting the low numbers that I was seeing earlier in the year). This is not surprising as I regularly have 4 of these(and up to 7) at any one time fighting over the sunflower hearts. Also of note was the increase in the numbers of other finches such as siskins (which enter the Top 20 for the first time) and bramblings seen in gardens. Although I didn’t see any on the actual day, this year marks my first ever sighting of a brambling (a female came in with some chaffinches for a couple of weeks) and the first time I had siskins in my garden (a male and female were there sporadically over a couple of months). This increase this year is thought to be due to a low yield of conifer seed in Scandinavia which has driven birds over here and into gardens. They apparently are attracted by the niger seed which more bird lovers are putting out in their gardens. I can safely say that this is not the case in my garden where sunflower hearts are the finches food of choice with the niger seed feeder being visited only when the goldfinches are chased off the other feeders (by almost anything else as they appear to be way down the pecking order!).

For those that are interested the top bird was the starling, followed by the house sparrow with blackbirds overtaking blue tits to take third place. More information can be found on the RSPB website where they also have the top ten listed for all the counties. The Northants list is as follows:

1. Starling

2. House Sparrow

3. Blackbird

4. Blue Tit

5. Chaffinch

6. Collared Dove

7. Woodpigeon

8. Robin

9. Goldfinch

10. Great Tit

I have to say that the numbers of sparrows in my garden has reduced this Winter, I am not sure though if this is because they are less keen on the sunflower hearts than they used to be on the mixed seed that I used to put out. I think I will get a better estimate when they start breeding and I put the mealworms out. As far as my list goes this Winter has definitely seen the rise of the chaffinch and the goldfinch which have by far outnumbered all the other species.