Welcomed chaffinch (1 Viewer)

Not really entitled to any fanfare I know, but for me I'm really pleased to see a pair of chaffinches in my garden. There's a pair that regularly come now and seem to ground-feed beneath the peanut and sunflower seed feeders that I'm hanging below a bird table just now. Never seen them at the feeders. Will they do this? I've only once seen one bird briefly on the bird table before going below to ground feed. I'm assuming they're male and female as one is more distinctively marked than the other, and they're always together.

Now I know these are common birds to be seen regularly, and I have seen them about not far away, but never for whatever reason, in my garden, strange as it may seem for the 15 years I've lived here! It's a bird I've seen almost predominantly in my cottage garden in the Poitou-Charentes region of France. A beautiful bird I've always enjoyed with its attractive song and flashes of white when flying. I'm pleased, and hope they stay around.

One other bird I'm waiting to return is the greenfinch. I used to see many about mainly enjoying peanuts a few years ago, but then they seemed to disappear and have never returned. Does anybody know why this might be?

I do see a great variety of garden birds where I live; recently all the usual including long tailed tits, goldfinch, coal tits etc. I'm now pleased to be able to add -at last- the chaffinch!

Jeffrey.

Congrats, its always great to get a new bird : )
I had to change my feeder and didn't realise that the greenfinches couldn't land on the new feeder. I 'lost' them for quite some time without knowing why. Then when got another feeder it had those triangle perches. After a bit I got the greenfinches back and peversely they started using one of the feeders they refused too before!

Mary

Well done! It is always good to get a new visitor. I know how pleased I was when goldfinches finally arrived after several years of waiting.

Thanks mary99 and Kits

I've seen three at one time now, and they're always just pecking around the ground beneath the feeders, but they are here every day. They seem to react to their own species with a jump when another arrives!

Kits, I understand your pleasure when goldfinches arrived! I used to see them (and hear them) in the trees at the bottom of my garden, but it took some time before I'd enticed them to my table and feeders.

Mary, The absence of the greenfinches is a total mystery as I used to see so many a few years ago.

Congrats! It's great when you see a new species in your garden. I currently have a Grey Wagtail that keeps coming to hoover up the remnants of fatballs that the starlings have obliterated, only ever seen on in parkland areas before.

Hi Jeff,

I get about 3 or 4 pairs of Chaffinches in my back garden (I live in a coastal area on the west coast of Ireland). Males are more reddish than the duller females but they have the same white areas on the wings. I agree with you: They tend to mob the ground around the bird table, the bird table itself but not so much the seeds down feeders. I have seen them on them but it's more rare. I have seen them after the sued ball hangers though...

On the subject of the pair although it looks like an even number of males and females, I cannot figure out which one is with who: they very much seem to chase each other off at the moment: Does anybody know if they are "mates" for life of do they change partners every season?

David