BULLFINCHES

[photo (c) Athur Grosset]

Another post from our trip to Shropshire.
Anna's parents live in a lovely old converted priory with a large garden surrounded by various types of trees.
They have put 2 nestboxes up on their front wall and have Great Tits investigating one of the boxes and Blue Tits the other.
They also have a Yew bush alongside their wood shed which a pair of Bullfinches appear to be nesting in.
I'm lucky enough to know what a Bullfinch sounds like.
They have a very distinctive call, a soft, piping, falling "phew" sound, often repeated constantly by the male with the duller female in his company.
This is very often how one sees Bullfinches, and it was no different this time.
I heard a Bullfinch call, got everyone to stop and "scan" and within 10 seconds or so, we saw both birds.
The Bullfinch is a very heavily-built finch, the male displaying very bold plumage colouration. They are so-named because of their "Bull Neck" (they don't really seem to have a neck)!
Very common in the 1950's, fruit farmers systematically trapped them to protect their crop - it wasn't rare for 1 farm to trap 500+ Bullfinches in a season. This devastated the national population, to the point now where they are relatively scarce.
The secret to seeing Bullfinches is to listen for their very didtinctive soft call, then keep your eyes open.
With luck, you'll see more than a typical view of a flash of pinky-red and a snow-white set of rumps flying away from you!
Anna's parents are very lucky indeed!