Autumn’s golden age
Suddenly summer, such as it has been, is in retreat and autumn is taking steps to take over on this first day of September.
Already the trees are showing distinct signs of the waning summer. As ever, horse chestnuts are taking the lead with their crowns beginning to glow with prominent signs of red and the brambles too are turning from green to red.
Colour has suddenly become a feature here as a new kind of music is to be heard to challenge the voices of Masters Robin and Wren.
The new sound is akin to a whispered conversation between a substantial gathering of confiding character. They charm us with their versatile voices and their remarkable colouration, which in some parts of the country has them rejoicing in the colloquial name seven coloured linnets. The new kids on the block are, of course, goldfinches.
Down the centuries these delightful little birds have enjoyed something of a chequered history. As long ago as the 13th century the goldfinch appears in English art, although it was the French and Italian artists who made a feature of goldfinches in devotional paintings. Threequarters of all devotional paintings produced in France and Italy during following centuries featured goldfinches, albeit perhaps surreptitiously.
I can understand why the goldfinch attracted such attention. Apart from their remarkable colour combinations, goldfinches are confiding and vocal, always pleasant to hear, whether whispering or in full voice belting out strings of deliciously, mainly mellow notes: the sweetest of music.
The ancient tradition that links the robin and the wren goes back many centuries and even has them marrying. There is an old verse ‘The Marriage of Cock Robin and Jenny Wren’ in which the goldfinch also appears. For long years the goldfinch represented wealth in many minds so it is not surprising that a 19th century verse reads: “Who gives this maid away? I do, say the goldfinch, and her fortune I will pay.”
However, there have also been times when the goldfinch has been treated abominably, especially during the 19th century, when the catching and caging of wild birds was endemic. With their colourful plumage and wonderful singing voices, goldfinches were top of the avian pops. Such was the popularity of this appalling pastime that it is said that 132,000 goldfinches were caught in a single parish in 1860.
Although 20 years later the newly formed Society for the Protection of Birds succeeded in having a Protection of Birds Act passed, goldfinches continued to be caged in large numbers. Regular competitions were held with large amounts of prize money on offer for the most handsome birds and for the best songsters. While there are those who continue to show these birds, the vast majority these days are aviary-bred.
Populations of truly wild goldfinches seem to be on the increase. One explanation for this may well be their popularity as garden birds and the availability of such favoured goldfinch foods as nyger seed and sunflower hearts. Perhaps financial constraints upon local authorities also contribute with more of the seed bearing plants such as rosebay willow-herb, thistles, knapweed, burdock and nettles being left to stand on roadside verges and the like.
With such plants going to seed at this time of the year, goldfinches are enthusiastically beginning to gather their own harvests. And it is when they gather in their little “charms” to reap their harvest that goldfinches show off their supreme agility as they cling on to such plants in order to tease out the nourishing seeds, often hanging upsidedown.
The Anglo Saxon names for the bird were thistletuige and thistle-tweaker. There are still such names as thistle finch and thistle warp in everyday use in certain parts of Britain. Here they are more likely to be referred to as goudspinks, although the traditional name for them in the Stirling area remains thistle finch. In Gaelic it is las air choile, the flame of the wood.
The re-emergence of goldfinch song seems almost like a celebration of that new suit of extra-colourful clothes they have donned following the moult. Unlike the many migratory birds present here, our goldfinches are going nowhere and so do not have to turn their attention towards building themselves up for the challenge of a flight back to Africa.
So instead during these next few weeks they will be intent on reaping that harvest of seeds. You may see them moving from one clump of weeds to the other, their tightly formed little flocks progressing in a deliciously undulating manner, their progress always accompanied by that delightful whispering music.
And as autumn begins its gradual advance they will become increasingly obvious in our gardens, adding even more colour to a landscape of ever-strengthening yellows, reds and golds.
Time perhaps to buy those bags of nyger seed and sunflower hearts.
It will be well worth it for these exceptional birds are set to entertain us right through the winter.