Look, I’m just going to say it: it’s too hot. I know, I know, we complain about the rain and the grey skies and the wind, and then we also complain when the sun comes out — but don’t we think it’s just a smidge too warm? I’m being baked in my office, sweating faster than I can replenish my dry husk of a body with ice water. You better be lathering on the SPF 50, lest you turn sunblushed like the subject of today’s article! This month’s bird is the Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula), known as Corcrán coille as Gaeilge.
As you walked down the path weaving between the trees, a cold wind whipped at your eyes. It was a grey, blustery spring day, but after weeks of rain, you were committed to going outside for some fresh air. It was a little too fresh for your liking, tousling your hair and playing around the hem of your open jacket. You squinted up into the budding leaves, and did a double take as a fat fresh apple caught your eye. No, that couldn’t be right, it wasn’t the season for it. You stepped closer to investigate, and bright black eyes fixed you with a curious look — a bird. The bright orange puff of a breast heaved to one side, revealing grey wings that deepened to black and a similarly dark head. The bird’s blunt beak, stuffed with flower buds, opened a moment later to whistle out a thin reedy song. Another bird joined the first; similar in size and shape but coloured as if the ink had run out while printing the feathers. Together, they stripped the branch of the cherry tree above your head of its nascent blooms.
You don’t know how long I’ve waited to write this article. The bullfinch, so called “widespread” bird that has been reported in 40% of gardens surveyed, has proved to be quite elusive. We’re talking years between glimpses. Each time we managed to find them, we started freaking out about getting good pictures before the shy creatures took off for the safety of the hedgerows. I am choosing to blame the government for this lack of sightings, since bullfinches prefer deciduous woodland and we all know how well managed that ecosystem is in this country. (Surprisingly the bullfinch has a green-listed conservation status.)
We’ve had some luck spotting them in prickly places — bramble bushes or hawthorn trees, though they’re partial to cherries and oaks as well. They use their thick beaks to shear flower buds in the spring and crack seeds in autumn. On several occasions, we’ve even seen them snacking on dandelion clocks in the grass, faces absolutely covered in fluff, so leave your grass un-mowed if you want them to pay a visit! As an added plus, you could grow some wildflowers too, if you were so inclined. Bullfinches will happily perch on a stem and bury their beaks into petals to get at the sweet seeds hidden at the heart of the plant.
Their penchant for flowers has earned them a reputation of being something of a pest in orchards. This has been the case since about the 16th century, but is still relevant in recent times. Between the 1950s and 1970s, bullfinches became especially abundant in south Britain, leading to widespread despair for plum, pear, and even some apple sellers. The only solution was to kill the fat fruit fiends before they could strip every tree of its buds. Extrapolating from the figures we’ve got from farms who employed this lethal solution, we can estimate that the total number of bullfinches killed each year in Britain could have exceeded 800,000. Most of these birds were killed in their first year of life, and there was a higher ratio of males to females killed. During that time, bullfinches were judged to be the most serious economic threat to fruit growers.
Thankfully, here at home the bullfinches are protected under the 1976 Wildlife Act, so you’ll have to get creative if you’re trying to keep them off your flowers. But they do still get caught illegally to be kept as pets. Their song isn’t as rich or melodic as the other members’ of their family, like the goldfinch. Often it’s been described as mournful; a quiet, low, melancholic pew pew of a whistle, barely audible unless you’re quite close. They can be taught to repeat specific melodies though, so maybe they’re worth more for that and their rotund stature than for their song. (Bullfinches and house sparrows are actually the same size, but the bullys just appear massive.)
Another way that bullfinches are unlike their cousins is that they only really want to mingle with their own species come wintertime. They’ll huddle in pairs or form small groups, but won’t participate in the huge flocks, 300 or so strong, of other finches, where anyone from the family is welcome. Seems like they really are the shy ones of the bunch.
Right now is primetime for bullfinches. They have two-to-three broods a season starting in early May until mid-July. Their success rate for broods goes up the more they have, so as we’re really getting into the summer season, expect to be baffled by even more fat apples plucking flowers out of trees.