Greenfinch not easily put off at feeding time
There are those for whom bird-watching has become such an obsession that they are prepared to travel miles – sometimes from one end of the country to the other – to catch even a glimpse of a particularly rare bird, often small birds which have been blown off course during migration. We usually call such folk twitchers!
However, contact for most of us is with what one might call, the more commonplace species. Of course, these are mostly observed in gardens and especially those belonging to people prepared to spend time and money on food for the birds – an amazingly high percentage of householders across the UK.
Growing up in a leafy suburb, my introduction to our feathered friends came overwhelmingly in the shape of house sparrows and starlings albeit that under the tutelage of a maiden aunt who had been a nature studies teacher, I soon learnt to identify blue tits and great tits as well as robins, wrens, chaffinches and greenfinches. A fuse had definitely been lit and ever since a flame has burned within me which inevitably draws me towards the avian community.
Naturally, I have joined the legions of folk who go to some lengths in order to attract birds to their gardens. However, I am not a twitcher!
Despite the fact that it is now a long time since that leafy suburb was my home territory and that for many decades now, I have lived “in the sticks”, house sparrows still represent a remarkably high percentage of the birds with which I commune on a daily basis. Despite recent reports that house sparrows are in serious decline, especially in urban and suburban areas, here they maintain an extremely healthy and of course an argumentative presence. However, there can be little doubt that the star of most bird-tables is undoubtedly the ubiquitous chaffinch, surprisingly second only to the wren in numbers in the UK.
The other common finches, which I see literally on a daily basis, are goldfinches and greenfinches, albeit that the latter has undoubtedly suffered quite serious decline in recent years. The other two – chaffinch and goldfinch – seem to have bucked the seriously downward population trend that has afflicted so many of our farmland birds. However, 2019 does seem generally to have been a good breeding year and that may partially be reflected in an increasing number of greenfinches having been a regular presence here in recent weeks.
Goldfinches may well have profited from the cash-flow stringencies placed upon councils which may have resulted in a lack of road verge cutting and a consequently super abundance of suitable weeds, the seeds of which are their preferred food sources. I’m sure they have also benefitted from the provision of feeds such as nyger seed and sunflower hearts in many gardens. Chaffinches too must have prospered in accordance with that wealth of food provided by garden bird-watchers, albeit that chaffinches are pretty catholic feeders anyway.
I would have thought that greenfinches might have similarly benefitted. After all they are equipped with exceptionally heavy bills, making them relatively versatile feeders. However, they do perhaps rely more heavily on seeds from ground-hogging weeds upon which both farmers and gardeners wage chemical warfare. This assault may well be the reason for the recent decline in numbers.
Nevertheless, my own long-term observations of greenfinches have always left with me the impression that they tend to be somewhat bullish when visiting bird-tables, not easily discouraged from enjoying the richest pickings. So, it may have been thought that they might also buck the trend.
The reduction in their numbers, together with an alarming decline among other farmland birds, notably among them hereabouts, the yellowhammer, gives us fair warning that all is not well. As I’ve frequently said before, I remain very concerned about the types and indeed the amount of chemicals we use upon the land. Let’s make no bones about it, these are poisonous materials.
They may be directed at the likes of weeds but clearly, they effect vitally and deleteriously, our populations of pollinators as well as our birds.
A neat and tidy countryside is not necessarily a healthy one! The knock-on effects of chemical warfare may also harm many other forms of wildlife. And, what of us?
In a strange sort of way, the decline in farmland wildlife may also be connected to global warming and therefore brings my focus on to the current rash of “Extinction” protests. I’m all for making a noise about these most serious of matters but as is so often the case, when protests disrupt people’s lives by preventing them from getting to work or sick people getting to hospital and requiring legions of police to control them, not to mention the costs involved, there is a distinct danger of making such protests counter-productive. I therefore find myself in no man’s land with regard to the manner of these demonstrations and worry about the pervading influence of extremists.
Instead, perhaps we should deluge all MPs and MSPs with countless letters urging them to take these matters seriously and do something to reverse the present trends, including looking increasingly intently upon the evidence and then legislating in such a way as to avoid poisoning the land. Way back in the 1960s, Rachel Burden’s “Silent Spring” warned us of the dangers we were creating. There is an ominous resonance in today’s decline in some bird species and the advance of modern, increasingly intensive farming methods, together with rising temperatures and sea levels all of which are induced rather than natural events.
What can we learn about this impending crisis? Well, we can’t influence the weather so we can’t willfully reproduce the conditions that made the last summer a very productive one in terms of our wildlife. Even reducing carbon emissions is not going to have an immediate effect.
If the scientists are right, we are now getting the bill, so to speak, for several hundred years’ worth of emissions. Furthermore, the biggest current polluters, China, India and America are where perhaps the protests should be happening. Can’t we as a human race get our act together? Eventually it will be our descendants who will pay the price.
But, back to our greenfinches. Hereabouts they are known as “peesies” - not to be confused of course with lapwings, a soubriquet apparently derived from the finches’ vocalisation, a long drawn out “wheeze”. Elsewhere, they rejoice in such names as “gross-beak”, a reflection of that sizeable bill, “green linnet” and “green bull”, the latter perhaps an expression of their aggression at bird-tables.
It’s certainly good to see them back. I must say that the much smaller goldfinches definitely don’t give way to them but then goldfinches are feisty wee birds. However, let’s hope this is not merely a temporary recovery!
The fortunes of our wildlife may be regarded as peripheral by some or of very little interest to others. However, our wildlife provides a constant monitoring service as to the health of OUR environment. If they prosper, so does the environment and so do we! Do we really want silent springs?