Bullfinches eating Amelanchier flower buds

 

At the end of March it looked as though we would have an exceptional display of Amelanchier flowers this spring - but then the bullfinches found them and thinned out the flower buds. A small price to pay for having these lovely birds in the garden, and it may have deflected their attention away from the damson and pear blossom buds.

Bullfinches eating cherry plum blossom

 Cherry plum Prunus cerasifera is in full bloom here in County Durham and its blossom is attracting bullfinches, that feed on the flower buds. You could almost say that their territory is defined by the availability of fruit tree blossom buds. This cock bird is one of a family party that can always be seen from a footpath along a disused railway line that's bordered by wild cherry, blackthorn, cherry plum, crab apple, and pear trees that must have grown from discarded cores, providing flower buds from now through until May. Later in the year I often see them feeding on seeds of dandelions, docks and brambles. 

Bullfinches

The local lanes and footpaths, that I've walked around so many times this year, are good habitat for bullfinches. In spring they feed on buds of cherry plum, sloe and wild cherry in the hedgerows and copses. In summer I more often catch them feeding on the ground, eating dandelion seeds. It's rare to see a solitary bullfinch; the parents and young stay together right through the winter.

Bullfinches

There have been bullfinches in the garden almost every day since Christmas. The attraction for them is a winter-flowering cherry Prunus subhirtella autumnalis which produces a continuous supply of flower buds from November until the end of March. The ground underneath the tree is littered with petals that they have torn off while they've been feeding, but the tree just keeps producing more.

Bullfinches are notorious for feeding on pear buds and we have a Concorde pear tree further down the garden that produces a very good crop of fruit every autumn. The bullfinches probably take some blossom but the winter-flowering cherry seems to be a bigger attraction.

They also seem to like hawthorn flower buds. This tree is level with the bedroom window so provides an opportunity to watch the birds feeding at close quarters.

It's often said that bullfinches pair for life, though I didn't know whether there is really any sound evidence for this until today, when it was confirmed in a post on Twitter that highlighted this piece of research. The idea may have arisen because the male, female and juvenile birds stay together in a family group until spring. Now Professor Olav Hogstad at the Norwegian university of Science and Technology Department of Natural History has shown that pairs can stay together for at least three breeding seasons..

 My impression is that bullfinches are doing quite well in my part of County Durham. I've seen more this year than I can ever remember. They stick together in family groups through the winter, which makes them easier to spot.

The Rev. F.O.Morris, in his Morris's British Birds in 1891, had a charming theory as to how the bullfinch got its name. "If I may venture upon a conjecture" he wrote "its name is derived from this circumstance, Bullfinch, if so, being a corruption of Budfinch, the word bud being pronounced in the vulgate of the north of England, as if spelled 'bood' "

Winter Blossom and Bullfinches

I planted this Prunus subhirtella autumnalis about fifteen years ago and every winter at this time it graces the garden with these flowers on bare twigs. It begins blooming in November and reaches a peak in February, but one of the best things about it is that .....

.... bullfinches find its apparently inexhaustible supply of flower buds irresistible. Yesterday there were three cock birds like this one feeding on it, together with three females.

This flowering cherry also diverts the birds' attention from the pear trees' buds further down the garden, so on the basis of its winter flower display, bird visitors and decoy attributes, planting it was a win-win-win strategy. 

Bullfinches

Soon after the waxwings moved on a party of bullfinches arrived on the crab apple tree in the garden, to feed on what was left of the shredded fruits, and they have been visiting frequently all day. The crab apples provide a useful diversion from our flowering cherry and pear blossom buds, which these birds tend to feed on from now until spring - although I'd have the bullfinches than the Concorde pears, which aren't very flavoursome. Generations of gardeners have lamented the ravages of bullfinches on their fruit trees. In his Journal entry of February 7th. 1791 Gilbert White, of Natural History of Selborne fame, wrote: "Bull-finches make sad havoc among the buds of my cherry, and apricot trees: they also destroy the buds of the goose-berries, and honey-suckles!" He also implicated greenfinches and, more improbably, grosbeaks in the devastation.

I have a suspicion that it's the seeds in the crab apples that the bullfinches are after, rather than the rotten fruits themselves, which are on the point of disintegration anyway.

As far as I can recall, we usually only have one family party of bullfinches in the garden in winter with just a single male, but over the last couple of days there have been four males in full, magnificent breeding plumage on the tree, which has generated some conflict.

Keeping wild bullfinches in cages has long been illegal but they were once popular cage birds and some bird fanciers learned that if they were fed exclusively on hemp seed their plumage would turn completely black. Birds can't make red or yellow carotenoid pigments, which come completely from their plant diet, either directly (from pear buds, in the case of bullfinches for example) or indirectly from eating animals that eat plants (from caterpillars in the case of blue tits), so it must be that hemp seed is low in these pigments and high in other darker ones that accumulate in the birds' feathers. But, as Gilbert White noted, all bullfinches are not equally susceptible. Here he is again, in his Journal entry for December 9th. 1781: "George Tanner's bullfinch, a cock bird of this year, began from its first moulting to look dingy; and is now quite black on the back, rump and all; and very dusky on the breast. This bird has lived chiefly on hemp-seed. But Dewey's and Horley's two bull-finches, both of the same age with the former, and also of the same sex, retain their natural colours, which are glossy and vivid, tho' they both have been supported by hemp seed. Hence the notion that hemp seed blackens bull-finches, does not hold good in all instances; or at least not in the first year."

If you are interested in reading more of Gilbert White's Journal entries, grouped together by year, they can be found by searching on the wonderful The Natural History of Selborne blog . Click here, for example, for his Journal entries for today, 7th. January between 1768 and 1793, which include mention of the first crossing from England to France by balloon, in 1785.

Bullfinch

Growing a decent crop of pears in County Durham is probably a lost cause, partly because of the climate and partly because of these birds..... but I'm perfectly happy for them to eat some of the pear blossom buds as long as they continue to visit our garden. A fabulous splash of colour on a freezing winter's day...

They say that tonight will be the coldest so far ... it certainly felt like that when we walked home this evening (double- click for a larger image)