Wildlife watch Rare bird spotted around town
Scottish Wildlife Trust’s Falls of Clyde Wildlife Reserve Ranger Laura Preston is still on the look-out for an elusive bird.
One of the Falls of Clyde volunteers emailed me a photograph earlier in the week of a brambling on his bird feeder next to a chaffinch.
Once my jealousy had subsided (my deluxe window feeder is yet to have visitors of this calibre!), I grabbed my bird book to find out more about these Scandinavian beauties.
These rather shy birds can be found in Britain between October and April, and they will often feed alongside chaffinches at our garden bird feeders.
In some winters when beech mast is plentiful, enormous flocks of bramblings will gather enmasse around beech trees.
As far as identification goes, they are the same size and shape as a chaffinch, and they also share similar flight patterns – however, not all is lost!
Male winter bramblings have yellow bills, compared to the chaffinches’ pinkish-grey. A chaffinch has a rusty-red breast, which extends all the way underneath his body, but the brambling has a very obvious white belly.
The chaffinch has a lovely olive-green rump and the brambling has a white rump, which can be obviously seen in flight.
Females have similar differences, but they are duller in colour than the males.
Other features to look out for are the white wing bars on both the male and female chaffinches, which the bramblings don’t have.
I don’t want to bamboozle you any further, but I did also find out that chaffinches have been known to hybridise with bramblings and vice-versa, and will be subsequently sterile. I’m not sure what the correct term for them is – ‘bramble-finch’ or ‘chaffling’ perhaps? Hybrids are extremely rare though.
Other interesting birds that have been spotted in South Lanarkshire recently include Coue’s Arctic Redpoll, Chiffchaffs (including a Siberian Chiffchaff ), Blackcap and lots of Waxwings – which can often be found in supermarket car parks!