I hope you enjoyed reading ‘Urban Birder’ David Lindo’s latest piece for Birds magazine on his encounters with bullfinches. If you haven’t read it yet, do turn to page 77 of the Spring 2012 issue.
We asked you to let us know about your own experiences with these chunky finches in the magazine, so I thought I’d share one of my experiences with bullfinches to help get things rolling.
It’s always nerve racking meeting your partner’s parents for the first time, but even more so when you make that first trip to go and stay at their house. Amidst desperately trying to avoid all those social faux pas and remembering my manners on that first weekend in Yorkshire, my eyes were drawn to the bird feeders hanging outside.
Remembering that it is probably quite rude to stare out of the window when I should be making that all important first impression, all hope went out the window (literally) when a rose-breasted vision of beauty dressed in a silver jacket dropped down onto one of the seed feeders: a bullfinch!
From that first encounter forth, it has always been a pleasure to go and visit my girlfriend’s parents, Sue and Graham, because up to two pairs of bullfinches are a near constant presence in both front and back gardens. I should also state that it is also a pleasure to visit Sue and Graham because they are sparkling company and excellent hosts. The finches are merely a bonus! Waking up to the finches’ soft ‘peeuh’ calls outside the window is a very pleasant experience indeed. They are often the first birds I see each day.
As David says in his feature, bullfinches are sadly so much rarer now, making sightings like these even more precious.
Does your home for nature, include a place for bullfinches?
What do your bullfinches do?I’m not lucky enough to have bullfinches coming to my feeders in my garden, but it would be great to hear from anyone who does. Please let us know by posting a comment below (you’ll need to register on the RSPB Community first), or emailing Nature's Home magazine at natureshome@rspb.org.uk and I'll add your stories to the blog.
Sally sent this email into the Birds mailbox;
Just thought I'd let you know that we have several pairs of bullfinches, probably five or six, who visit our garden daily. We have an 18" feeder filled with sunflower seeds which they empty each day, along with help from the greenfinches, great-tits and blue-tits, and they also help to empty the niger feeders put out for the goldfinches. It is certainly a wonderful sight to see five or six of the adult males together, such a show of colour, and last year we of course had lots of babies too, hopefully the same will happen this year.While I've been sitting in the sun room watching the birds whilst sending this email a jay has just payed us a fleeting visit, perched in a tree for a few moments to see what all the feeding activity was about, then flew off, a very welcome visitor to our garden which we hope to encourage to return.
Linda sent this email into the Birds mailbox:
We live in a small town called Wem in Shropshire and we're lucky to have the bullfinches visit our garden on a daily basis. We have two pairs coming daily, mainly the males come and feed together but the females are nearby. We also have them bringing their young ones with them which is lovely to see. I do try and feed regularly and always use sunflower hearts. We also have a woodpecker that comes on a regular basis and have on occasions had two tree-creepers come which I find very exciting.
John & Margaret sent this eamil into the Birds inbox:
I see lots of people have replied about Bullfinches. We have 4 pairs of Bullfinches (I assume two parents and their off spring of three males and three females ) that regularly visit our feeders. When I say regularly, I mean every day and all day. It is quite normal to see four very colourful males sitting on our old apple tree or in the bushes nearby waiting to visit the sunflower heart seed feeder. Many of our other bird visitors do get bullied out of the way at times but most seem to get a look in eventually. I suspect the Robins are the ones who suffer the most since we don’t seem to see them as much these days.
Our Bullfinches have been with us for two to three years now and don’t seem to have done any harm to our apple tree or other soft fruit bushes in the garden. Maybe they are now so used to getting their food from the feeders that they don’t what the hassle of visiting plants!
Rita sent this eamil into the Birds mailbox:
We regularly see bullfinches in our garden (two male and one female so far this year but usually have 2 pairs). They have been with us for some years and are a delight to watch particularly in the lilac bush 3 feet from my study window, quite distracts me from my work! Our garden is large, bordered by fields, with large ‘natural’ areas including numerous trees and shrubs. The variety of birds is wide but favourites are the Bullfinches, Long Tail Tits and Goldcrests all of whom I’m pleased to say distract me from my work.
Lorraine sent this email into the Birds inbox;
We have bullfinches that visit our garden daily, they have been breeding for a number of years and a photo is attached of 2 young from last year. Sadly we have lost some to finch disease and flying into our conservatory window, in the heavy snow last year we had 8 adult birds feeding at a time – they love to munch on the sunflower seeds alongside the greenfinches. I was fascinated to see the young get their red colouring & turn into males – they were multi coloured for quite sometime! They are beautiful birds and I have fond memories of watching them with my Grandad as a child so they will always be special to me.