Bullfinch

It is one of the coldest mornings of the year and I am glad to be on the move, working my way around the local lanes and tracks for Bird Atlas 2007-11. I have written of this national stock-take of Britain’s (and Ireland’s) birds before, a periodic mapping of their distribution and numbers. It is the last leg of the Atlas, with two winter visits over the coming three months and then two summer visits next year, and I find myself in an area of open farmland and small woodlots up near Shipdham. This is a place that I have not visited before.

As my two-hour mapping exercise continues so I come to realise just what an excellent piece of Norfolk countryside this is. A large flock of Yellowhammers and Skylarks is feeding on some stubble, a rare sight these days, and Lapwings lift from a piece of damp pasture upon my approach. It is the hedgerows that surprise me most of all. Although they have been cut back hard, they rise to a decent height and hold a larder of berries and fruits, attracting in Fieldfares, Blackbirds (by the dozen) and various finches. They also carry last year’s nests, including a surprising number of Chaffinch and Goldfinch nests, neatly constructed in the forks of the taller shrubs, alongside those of Wren, Blackbird and Wood Pigeon.

A soft whistling note alerts me to the presence of a Bullfinch, old billy black cap, and then I spot him just ahead of me above the bramble. He is not alone; two other Bullfinches slip from the hedgerow, their striking white rumps evident as they fly. The Bullfinch is a wonderfully engaging bird, with its little black cap, pinky-red breast (in the male) and stubby little beak. I used to watch them as a child, feeding on the seed heads of dandelion and sorrel with delicate precision. They are birds of scrubby woodlots and thick hedgerows, often overlooked despite their colourful attire. Both the song and the call are subtle and easily missed.

Our Bullfinches are largely sedentary in habits but they will make small local movements out from favoured woodland sites to search for seeds in nearby farmland. These movements are more pronounced in those years when Ash seeds, their staple food, are in short supply. Interestingly, the larger Scandinavian birds can make substantial movements in some years. This is such a year and several have been reported around the Norfolk coast. Bullfinch numbers have declined since the 1960s, most notably within farmland, and they are one of the birds that is often missed when doing Atlas fieldwork. To stumble across this trio of billy black caps has made my morning.

What's in a name

I have been leafing through the new edition of my favoured bird guide, a publication that will accompany me on my birdwatching trips around the county. I hope that it will serve me as well as the battered copy of the first edition that it is now replacing. The book contains new information and so recognises new species, created where previously recognised races have been split into two. So now, for example, I have Yellow-legged and Caspian Gull. Annoyingly, for me at least, the guide contains some of the creeping changes in bird names that seems to come from an increasing Americanisation of our language. Gone are the Red-throated, Black-throated and Great Northern Divers, the ‘Diver’ now replaced by ‘Loon’. I cannot imagine any birdwatcher I know referring to the ‘Great Northern Loon’ at Whittlingham Country Park. At least the authors have not gone as far as those of a bird list that I saw recently; they’d replaced Common Gull with ‘Mew Gull’ and the term ‘Skua’ with ‘Jaeger’!

Somebody suggested that standardising the English names in this way is a sensible approach, enabling our New World cousins to understand which species we are writing or talking about. My natural response to this is that we already have names in place that enable those working on birds, in whichever country, to understand which species we mean. These are the Scientific names, based on the binomial system devised by Linnaeus.

Of course, such changes are not new and if you browse through bird guides from generations past, you will see many other examples of bird names that have changed. The Yellow Bunting of 1943 is now the Yellowhammer, the Hedge Sparrow is now Dunnock or Hedge Accentor and, going back further, the Red-breast is now the Robin. This last change of name is particularly interesting as the ‘Robin’ bit in ‘Robin Red-breast’ was a sort of country or folk name, in much the same way as some people refer to ‘Jenny Wren’. Imagine if we started calling the Wren, the ‘Jenny’!

I am often struck by how much more charm there is in the local names of birds than in many of the common names that we use at the national level. The ‘bee bird’ for Spotted Flycatcher is one of my favourite local Norfolk names but there are others: Bunt Lark (Corn Bunting), Blood Olp (Bullfinch – derived from ‘alpe’, the oldest known name for this bird and used by Chaucer) and the Sea Dotterel (Turnstone) are just three of many.

Whatever your views, names remain important because they enable us to communicate about these creatures and share our passions for the natural world.

Bullfinch

The small copse is a mass of thorns and bramble, with a few taller trees providing a degree of elevation that seems to favour the finches and thrushes that attend the small feeding station that has been set up here. The copse is practically an extension to the neighbouring wood but it has a very different character. While the wood is wet, a small spring feeding a clear stream that flows the short distance into the river, the copse is on higher ground, dry in nature and with different trees and shrubs its constituent parts. I often stop here on my way home from one of my walks, the feeding station attracting a mix of birds and affording good opportunities to view them at close range. This morning, the chaffinches, tits, blackbirds and thrushes are joined by redwings (which gorge themselves on the few berries that remain) and two bramblings (close relatives of the more familiar chaffinch). However, it is the bullfinches that I have come to see, since this is the one spot locally where you can practically guarantee seeing these delightful finches. Sure enough a male bird is present, his pinky-red breast and cheeks striking when viewed against the dark bushes behind.

The Bullfinch has something of a shy and retiring nature, a bird of deciduous woodland or scrubby corners, which occurs at low density across much of Britain and Ireland. The unobtrusive nature of this bird is matched by its soft call, which is easy to miss, and its equally soft song, the latter containing some notes that are so soft as to be barely audible; this has the effect of making the song appear somewhat hesitant and punctuated with gaps. Seemingly out of keeping with the soft and rather understated call, the Bullfinch is actually a rather fine mimic. For this reason Bullfinches have been long-valued by cage bird enthusiasts, with some birds taught to mimic whimsical tunes by their owners. This habit was once particularly fashionable in Germany, where large numbers of birds were trapped to meet a growing public demand.

The numbers of Bullfinches present in Britain have been in long term decline, prompting the species to be added to the ‘red-list’ of birds of conservation concern. Given their current predicament it is hard to imagine that they were once regarded as a serious pest of commercial fruit trees, something which led to licensed control measures.

There is no sign of the female today but I am sure she will be somewhere within the thicket of thorns. Bullfinch pairs are long lasting and it is reassuring to be able to visit this particular copse to catch up with these delightful birds so readily.