John Gamblin wrote:
>
> G'day everyone,
> Wondering if anyone out there could assist me please.
> Have
> for the past few weeks now been getting "Greenfinch" landing and
> feeding at the bird feeders outside my home and I know so little about
> them apart from what I've studied about them recently. Could and would
> anyone like to give me their twopenny worth. I am going to treat
> myself
> to a copy of Graham Pizzey's but need a bit more on them then what he
> states ? habitat,
> food preference, nesting, etc., etc., any help would be gratefully
> recieved. Thank you for reading this.
>
> John A. Gamblin
>
>
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John, please would you include location with a query like this! It
really really helps!
Greenfinch seems much less common around Heidelberg, Melbourne, than it
was 20 years ago. Probably because parks and reserves are kept more
tidily and waste ground with seeding grasses is disappearing with human
dwellings in every corner. It has quite a heavy beak for a 'true' Finch
and presumably can eat larger grass seeds. It is never very conspicuous,
particularly females and young, much browner than many illustrations. It
will come to a birdbath. The buzzing call is a useful indication of
their presence when you know it.
I have seen a group of them - much outnumbered by Goldfinches - in a
paddock with a fence-to-fence winter cover of artichoke-thistle
seedheads, near Preston Inst of Technology building east of Plenty Road,
near Mill Park (and a Scarlet Robin posed on a thistle too).
I think the habitat they prefer is rather neglected paddocks with
scattered trees, old hawthorn or boxthorn hedges, fennel plants, big
thistles - they never seem to be far from cover of a shrubby type.
Teatree and melaleuca near the coast.
However Goldfinch which takes much smaller seeds from thistles,
dandelion clocks etc seems still fairly numerous - I saw a flock of 20
to 30 at Banyule Flats, Heidelberg, this afternoon among yellow daisy
flowers, prob. Flatweed, and the fluffy seedheads- a pretty sight. (And
two brown Flame Robins, a Willy Wagtail, and some Yellow-tailed
Thornbills on the fence as well.)
Anthea Fleming in Ivanhoe
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