Each winter a scattering of bullfinches patrol the hedgerows along the lonning at North Plain Farm. They’re quite easy to recognise even from a distance as they flit ahead of you in the hawthorns, their bright white rumps flashing as they go, before diving back into the hedge further along. A closer view reveals the striking rose pink colour of the face and breast and glossy black cap.
Male Bullfinch along Lonning hedge in winter and . . .
. . . a female too.
Occasionally a pair may breed around the farm buildings but more are seen in winter as birds vacate breeding territories and move towards the coast and lowlands where the winters will be milder. Occasionally small numbers of bullfinches will come across the North Sea in winter from Scandinavia. These individuals are even bigger and brighter than ours. In 2004 there was an ‘invasion’ of more big bullfinches which had a distinctive trumpeting call, quite unlike the usual soft piping of our native birds, sometimes likened to a creaking door. The origin of these trumpeting birds is still somewhat of a mystery but it is thought that they likely originated from populations in northern Russia.
The large head, thick neck and bulbous bill allow the bullfinch to chew off the buds of trees and bushes which is their main food source. This has caused problems in fruit growing areas where they have acquired the status of agricultural pests but stripping orchards bare of buds. However the loss of hedgerows with standard trees and agricultural intensification is believed to have caused rapid declines in population, though there are signs that numbers are levelling out, or even increasing slightly again in some areas.
The long staying avocet can be seen most days associating with the oystercatchers at high tide between Biglands and Maryland just west of Bowness. A snow goose has also been mixed in with the barnacle goose flock for several weeks – a bright white goose with black wing tips, usually found on the other side of the Atlantic and not to be confused with the occasional dull white ‘leucistic’ barnacle goose which is merely a genetic aberration.
1 12 15 - Avocet with Oystercatchers at Scargavel Point.
10 11 15 - Snow Goose flying with Barnacles just east of the Viaduct.
17 12 15 - Barnacles flying with Leucistic bird at Scatgavel Point.
Dave Blackledge
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