Mornin abody 🙂

Today’s bird is quite a stunning sight, although the light was not great, sorry!

This bird has some lovely colours, that you can see in the pictures below.

You had the chaffinch yesterday,  any similarities with this one?

Compare the bird’s beak and the body shape and size.

Challenge – can you draw this one?

This bird is the goldfinch, another one in the finch family.

Use this website to find out what it is – check under the letter ‘G’: https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildli…/wildlife-guides/…/

The male (Mr) and the female (Mrs) look the same, though the male has a slightly longer beak.

Bird gear and behaviour

Beaks – Goldfinches have great beaks for eating buds and seeds. They love nyjer seed from a bird feeder! They will also eat insects.  But their favoured food in the autumn is eating flower seeds like this:

Many years ago a goldfinch was known as a thistle finch 🙂

Feathers – Goldfinches have gold feathers on their wings and a lovely red face but the young take a while to develop the colour. See the one below.

Bird call – goldfinches always sound so excited! Often they chatter away in the trees.

Flight – even their flight is bouncy! And they often chatter as they fly!

Safety in numbers – They are very sociable and as soon as nesting season is finished they gang up, sometimes in huge flocks and you will hear them ‘whickering away’ to each other.

If you are ever oot of toon in the winter and see a flock of birds fly up from a field it might well be a mix of finches.

I have noticed more and more goldfinches seem to stay in town over winter. Maybe there is more food available to them from bird feeders.

 

Time for a Tale – this is a story by Hans Christian Anderson called, ‘The Emperor and the Nightingale’

This is the nightingale song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdlIbNrki5o

Challenge – can you put words to this song?

 

Extra intel

Fact – Goldfinches used to be caught in big numbers and caged, along with many other songbirds. Today there are still people who like to keep an aviary of birds, and goldfinches are one of the popular birds to be kept in captivity.

Challenge – can you find out what a group of goldfinches is called?

Be great to hear your comments, see your drawings and hear your tales, you can add them to the Woodside or the Silverhaar facebook page 🙂

See you tomorrow!