The latest report by Michael Walter:
Last autumn an influx of several thousand hawfinches into the country got birdwatchers excited. The breeding range of these large finches extends as far east as Japan, but they are commonest in the forests of central Europe, and it is probably from this closer area that these refugees came, forced on the move by a likely failure of crops of their favoured food – seeds of hornbeam, beech, yew and cherry. The UK population (nearly all of it in England) is under 1000 pairs and, because they are so shy, they are a classic bogey bird for many a twitcher. It is also a species in decline; whereas 25 years it was widely, if thinly, spread from the south east right up to the Scottish borders, it is now very patchily distributed, with hot spots in the Lake District, Snowdonia, Forest of Dean and the New Forest. Outside those regions the chances of finding hawfinches are now extremely slim.
Historically, there is the intriguing possibility that the hawfinch may have been absent from England in the 18th century, not colonising until the early 19th century, and then spreading fairly rapidly northwards. A species at the edge of its range, its status as a resident British bird seems precarious, and the population may not be self-sustaining indefinitely, relying instead on periodic replenishment from Germany or Hungary.
At Blean Woods the hawfinch was one of the species I was thrilled to record as breeding when I arrived here in 1982. The graph shows that on the monitored area, which covers only one-third of the reserve, numbers peaked in 1988 (coinciding with an earlier European influx), when there were eleven territories, then tailed off rapidly. The last pair on that patch was in 2002, and there was a single isolated instance of probable breeding elsewhere on the reserve in 2008, but there have been no subsequent records. The hawfinch’s glory days at Blean have passed, at least for the time being; gone are the years when you could rely on seeing them if you knew just where to look – one spring a pair nested at the top of a Douglas fir in the car park!
It is our largest finch, with a massive parrot-like bill, with two knobs on the roof and two on the floor, into which cherry stones and other hard seeds can be securely wedged prior to a crushing pressure of more than 50lb being applied by the bird’s bulky neck muscles. Having handled an injured hawfinch, I can attest to its bite making my eyes water, but it didn’t actually sever the finger!
So, to return to the recent influx; the sad truth is that I have failed to find any hawfinches in the wood this winter, though I like to think that, had I spent more time wandering around our most extensive areas of hornbeam coppice, I might have disturbed a group feeding on the ground, uttering their explosive “tik” calls as they flew up into the safety of the canopy.
Michael Walter
michaelwalter434@gmail.com
01227 462491
One of the invading hawfinches, photographed at Godmersham
By Dave Smith