GREENFINCHES AT 70°N
It is not often I can contribute to discussions about particular birds
on
Birding-aus, but Greenfinches are pt the most common bird on my feeders, so
I have watched them quite a bit. Also, as greenfinches are comparative
newcomers to our area, I get many telephones asking about them. Many of the
birds on the feeders are young birds that are not much green at all, and
people do not recognize them for what they are.
Not that recognition is difficult, once you realize that all
greenfinches
are not necessarily green. The clinchers are size (almost as large as a
House Sparrow),uniform colours without too much stripes(except very young
birds in autumn), the forked tail, and especially the yellow on the
primaries, that is always visible as a yellow stripe also on the sitting
birds.
I feed mostly with sunflower seeds, a type of food that is ideal for
Greenfinches. As the large strong bill indicates, largish and hard seeds
form a large part of the food of this species, and these are taken both
from the trees or picked up from the ground.
On feeding tables the Greenfinches have a tendency to develop into
bullies, who occupy favourite spots on the feeders and defend them against
all comers (although they are chanceless against the large bulfinches who
just ignore them and shoulder them away).
The Greenfinches are very lively birds, occurring now before the nesting
season mostly in small or even large flocks. They are usually present in my
garden, high in the trees, even when not feeding on the feeders, and their
presence is easily noted as they are not still for a moment: the most usual
flock calls are a large variety of trilling "rolls" , rapid twittering
calls vaguely reminding one of redpolls, although much less "dry", and an
almost shorebird-like "chewee". The full song is an irritated sounding
nasal rasp, probably irresistable to other Greenfinches, but not one of the
most musical parts of the spring chorus. Just now, however, they and the
Great Tits are all the chorus we have as yet.
Greenfinches used to have their northern boundary S of Tromsø, and they
were absent here when I moved to Tromsø in 1973. Now it is a very common
bird both here and most places even in Finnmark, the province north of us.
Why this should be so, is not quite clear. Global warming is of course
bandied about, but in my opinion the maturing of the many conifer
plantations in our area may have played an even greater role: these are
very important both as nesting area and as a chance to hide from the
vagaries of winter--- the Greenfinches usually do not bother to migrate far
south.
Most modern bird books give the Greenfinch the scientific name Carduelis
chloris, a remnant of the period of generic lumping in avian taxonomy that
we are just coming out of. I suppose, and molecular work seems to
strengthen that idea, that our Greenfinches and their near allies in Asia,
are not really all that close to the Goldfinches and their allies in
Carduelis, and the next editions may well once more use the name Chloris
chloris, the yellow-green yellow-green one. It is not a bad name for this
brash, somewhat plebeian, but lively and cozy bird at all!
Earlier contributions on this thread have told us that Greenfinches are
most common on "overgrown paddocks". Those are few and far between in
Tromsø! Here the species is quite common wherever there are trees, esp.
conifers, and in winter often concentrated around feeders. I have had up to
25 at a time on my feeder.
Wim Vader, Tromsø Museum
9037 Tromsø, Norway
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