Goldfinches and sunflowers on the Durham coast

Earlier this month, the largest flock of goldfinches that I've ever seen congregated on the Durham coast. There must have been well over 200 birds, feeding on seeds of the limestone flora on the cliff top above Blast beach. Most seemed to be eating meadowsweet seeds, but there was also a large store of knapweed and hemp agrimony seeds for them to feed on. Many of the birds hadn't moulted into full adult plumage yet and were quite hard to spot on the ground, but when they all took to the air at once they were a magnificent spectacle.   

Further along the coastal path, near Hawthorn dene, two fields have been sown with a wild bird food crop, including fodder radish, quinoa (below) and sunflowers which will provide food for finches and buntings later in the winter, when the supply of wild flower seeds runs low. Last winter similar crops attracted large flocks of linnets.

Goldfinches, alders and dandelions

 

It's hard to over-estimate how important alder seeds are as food for small finches in winter. Siskins love them, but so do goldfinches, like these that I watched on a walk near my home yesterday. 

Goldfinches are also fond of dandelion seeds and, although the main season for these had long passed, there are always late-flowering dandelions around. This goldfinch was feeding on dandelion and lawn daisy seeds on a grassy verge at the beginning of December.

Goldfinches

Goldfinches must be the most colourful of all the native finches. I have seen then on most walks this year, first as single pairs in spring and, once their breeding season was over, in flocks, often in the company of linnets.

Immaculate breeding plumage, in spring.

This side view shows the beak well - longer and more pointed that most finches, perfect for wheedling seeds out of teasel heads in autumn

In late spring, dandelion seeds are a favourite meal

That pointed beak is also perfect for extracting seeds from ripe larch cones

And later in the year their diet sometimes switches to oilseed rape seeds

Late summer and the breeding season is over. Often in mixed flocks, with linnets on the Durham coast

Late in the summer, knapweed seeds are favourite food

I often see flocks on up to 200 goldfinches on the Durham coast between Hawthorn Dene and Dawdon,  in early autumn

A Day on the Durham coast

Some plants and animals from a day walking on the cliffs between Seaham and Hawthorn Dene on the Durham coast last week





















Dozens of fully grown drinker moth caterpillars on the steps leading down to Blast beach ...






















..... some had even made it all the way down to the beach

Masses of bird'sfoot trefoil in full bloom on the edge of the limestone quarry

Bloody cranesbill coming into bloom on he magnesian limestone grassland

Wonderful display of buttercups in the meadows at Hawthorn Dene

Not many early purple orchids, but some nice specimens

Some glorious displays of hawthorn near Hawthorn Dene. Best year for hawthorn blossom that I can remember

Common milkwort around the quarry area

There's not a lot of sea pink along this coastline but in full bloom























A goldfinch that seemed to be ill and was reluctant to fly, but with no visible signs of injury

.... and finally, fulmars soaring along the cliffs

Aggression

Redpoll vs. Goldfinch. 

No matter how much food I put out, there's never enough for all of them!

Redpolls

This was a very welcome sight when I looked out of the window yesterday. We've had redpolls in the garden in winter before, feeding on birch seeds, but this is the first time that I've noticed them on the bird feeders. The hard weather, together with a shortage of birch and alder seeds, must have driven them to compete with the siskins and goldfinches for the thistle seeds.

The photos aren't great, because of the reflections in the dirty double glazing and poor light, but the birds let me get reasonably close. The Rev. F.O.Morris, writing in his A History of British Birds (1891 edn.) commented that 'They are gentle and lively birds, and, unless scared, may be nearly approached: they will even return to the same tree immediately after having been fired at'. 

These days the camera has replaced the gun and they kept coming back to the thistle seeds all day.

This is a handsome cock bird, with his chest feathers suffused with crimson, sharing the feeder with a goldfinch.

The feather pattern on the redpoll's back is particularly attractive.

Siskins and redpolls often flock together in birches and alders but there was some mutual antagonism between them when they shared the feeder, with the siskins generally being the more assertive of the two.

A Poke in the Eye from a Teasel

The teasels Dipsacus fullonum in my garden are beginning to shed ripe seeds, so I’m expecting the local goldfinches to show up any day now. This species’ liking for teasel seeds is legendary and I read recently that it’s only the males, which have more slender beaks than females, that can reach the seeds (see http://www.arkive.org/goldfinch/carduelis-carduelis/info.html). Can this really be true? If so, why does this sexual difference in goldfinch beak shape exist? The forest of spines on the teasel seed heads is surely a defence mechanism that has evolved to keep hungry birds at bay, by poking them in the eye, so it might be expected that natural selection, which operates to preserve features that enhance the fitness (reproductive potential) of a species would ultimately favour the evolution of teasel heads with longer spines, which would force even the slender-billed male goldfinches to keep their distance. Interestingly, plant breeders at the International Centre for Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics in India have been breeding pearl millet varieties with extra-long bristles in their seed heads for just this purpose – for keeping flocks of finches at bay by irritating their eyes and beaks when they try to eat the grain (see http://www.new-ag.info/98-1/focuson.html)