KEY SPECIES

COMMON ROSEFINCH Earmarked as a potential colonist after a spate of UK breeding records in the early 1990s, the invasion of this species, formally known as Scarlet Grosbeak and the Scarlet Rosefinch, failed to materialise. Most birders know it best in its brown, streaky, beady-eyed and otherwise nondescript juvenile guise. For this is the plumage that most appear in when they turn up as scarce annual migrants, usually at the coastal extremities of the UK. That said, there has been some well documented cases of birds being found well inland in London, namely Wormwood Scrubs, and a recent singing male that briefly held territory in Walthamstow. The Common Rosefinch belongs to the genus, Carpodacus, a family of 26 finches in which the males have a red element to their plumage. Representatives of the rosefinch family are to be found in Eurasia with the core in Sino-himalayas. Interestingly, the three species to be found in North America have recently been placed in a separate family.