Who can fail to be enchanted by the sight of a Bullfinch? I vividly remember once seeing a party of four, one male, three females, in my garden some 30 years ago. On that occasion I stumbled downstairs, bleary eyed from slumber, to be greeted by this colourful quartet gorging themselves on the seeds of shrivelled blackberries (a favoured food source), just a few feet from the kitchen window. I watched them for several minutes, the plan of making a reviving cuppa banished from my immediate thoughts. Being fortunate enough to feast my eyes on these beautiful birds close to was the only wakeup call I needed.
The species scientific name is Pyrrhula pyrrhula, which in Latin (from the Greek) means flame-coloured bird – quite apt. The birds appearing in the UK are a designated subspecies (British Bullfinch – form pileata) of this Eurasian Bullfinch, but for our purposes simple Bullfinch will do very well. In fact there are something like ten sub-species spread across Europe and into the Middle East and Asia, together with seven other distinct species worldwide. Sometimes birds from northern countries will visit in winter and these are designated Northern Bullfinches (still Eurasian Bullfinches mind), and are generally much paler than our British birds. Right, all clear? Good, let’s move on.
Our male Bullfinch is one of our most colourful and handsome of birds. He is a neat creature with a deep pink breast and cheeks, a jet black cap, blueish-grey back and a bright white rump and wing bar. Fantastic. The female is more muted in tone, sporting a dull pinkish-grey breast, although she is still a very smart lady. The birds’ name must derive from their bull necked appearance, exaggerated perhaps by a stout but quite short beak. An old Norfolk name is Blood-ulf, the first part of that name no doubt in reference to the colouration of the male’s breast; the ‘ulf’ being of Scandinavian origin, a masculine term related to wolf.
Once so common they were considered a pest species, Bullfinches are now rather less obvious. They are shy birds, generally preferring to feed quietly within a tree canopy or deep within stands of hawthorn or bramble. A flash of their aforementioned white rumps as a pair flits away is often all that is seen. That, or the sound of their subtle and melancholy piping call, can be the only clue that the birds are present. This makes my privileged sight of four feeding as bold as brass in my backyard all the more satisfying.
For centuries the Bullfinch has been persecuted by fruit growers, both domestic and commercial. Their unfortunate habit of feasting on the emerging buds of cherries, pears, apples, plums and the like in early spring stirred the wrath of farmers and gardeners who mercilessly blasted them from the boughs, no doubt taking more blossom off the trees as a result than any poor finch could possibly strip. The numbers slaughtered in this way is, by today’s standards, both horrific and unjustified. As recently as the mid-1960s hundreds were still being trapped annually at orchards across the country. Despite this carnage, at this time winter flocks of three figures were not uncommon, feeding on weed seeds and spent grain. Those scenes can sadly no longer be appreciated. Since the late 1970s and into the early 1980s numbers sharply declined across the UK for reasons not fully understood, although habitat loss, increasing urbanisation and intensification of farming practices must all play a part. Happily, it seems this trend is being slowly reversed with an apparent recent upturn in population levels.
Bullfinches need relatively thick stands of wild and uncultivated cover to thrive, providing them with shelter, food and breeding sites. They are largely absent from tracts of intensively managed farmland or marsh. Good places to find Bullfinches, especially in winter, are in damp woodlands, and scrub on commons and heaths. Here the birds can be encountered in small flocks quietly feeding on the seeds of birch, ash and bramble. Walk quietly through the more wooded areas, listening out for their soft fluting calls and you may well be rewarded with the sight of these most striking of finches feeding unobtrusively amongst the tangle. If you encounter them, remain still and quiet, admire their bright plumage and delight in the fact that the habitat you are visiting and helping to conserve (hopefully by membership of your local wildlife trust and/or the RSPB), provides them with a home.
Our Bullfinches are quite sedentary birds, seldom moving far from their natal patch and being faithful to a known food source. The birds are also faithful to one another, pairing for life. Nests of small twigs, lined with softer hair are built in hedgerows, patches of thick scrub or bramble. I remember stumbling upon these constructions, complete with 4 or 5 blue eggs spangled with dark purple spots and dashes on a regular basis in my youth. One particular instance, illustrating the attentive nature of the birds to one another, sticks in my mind. I was sitting quietly in a wood, perhaps for an hour, maybe two, when a pair of Bullfinches arrived to perch on a small tree a few yards from where I sat. Hop by hop they dropped lower until the hen bird dived into a patch of bramble. The male bird waited until she was settled before flying off to feed alone, he had called her off the nest, accompanied her whilst she fed then escorted her back to the nest. Who says animals have no sense of care or love?
For a video of a male Bullfinch click here
For more species profiles click here