Bullfinch common – if on a winter morning to be on the edge of spruce or mixed forest, in the twilight, you can hear the quiet, turbidity nasal “Frou-Frou”… It awoke bullfinches.
All night they spent in dense spruce crown and now we are leaving to feed. Here they seemed in the pre-dawn darkness, heading towards the river, usually 3-7 birds are together, rarely more. Bullfinches don’t like to gather in large flocks, like sparrows or Buntings, and keep in small groups of several birds together.
These birds rarely suffer from starvation, as the range of food is very wide. For one day we can meet these birds in various places. You can meet bullfinches on the stems of nettles, where they choose the seeds of this weed, you can see them on other wild grasses – amaranth, wormwood, meadowsweet, avens, Swan. Sometimes they are caught on the empty Bush of honeysuckle, which for some reason they long time do not want to leave.
If you approach the Bush, which had just fed the birds, and inspect the branches, you notice that many of the buds on them have disappeared, and the snow under a Bush darken some fine crumbs. It bullfinches cut buds like pliers, at the base. They skyiwwt kidney not only honeysuckle, but also with many other shrubs. Sometimes you can catch bullfinches and on the tops of the birch trees, but birds there skyiwwt no kidney, and thin, not yet developed seed catkins, dropping into the snow of the cracked pieces of earrings.
Like other members of the family of finches, bullfinch is a granivorous bird. If you look at his beak, compared with the other beaks of finches he seems especially short and thick, and the edges had a strong and very sharp.
Closer to spring, if you want to observe these beautiful birds, go to the Boulevard or Park, planted with ash trees. On these trees, it is not attractive to other birds, bullfinches at this time to catch easiest. Watch them. Sitting on a branch, hung with tassels of long thin fruits, Finch reaches for it, picks one, then long rolling in his beak, then throws and runs after the other.
Under the tree you will find many dropped bullfinches letuchek ash. At first glance they are no different from hanging on a tree, but if you raise a briefing to explore, you can see the entire length of the narrow crack. Through her bullfinch chose the seed. You can catch bullfinches and lilac bushes, whose bitter seeds that are enclosed in tight boxes, too, are prey for these birds.
Perhaps the longest kept bullfinches on Rowan. The berries attract very many inhabitants of the forest, and not only of birds, but quadrupeds. The majority of consumers tart berries eat the whole fruit as a whole, and bullfinch, tearing berry, chewing it for a long time, and selecting all the seeds and throws. Under rjabinovyj trees after visiting bullfinches all the snow blushes with flushed birds chewed berries from which birds gnawing only the seeds. He does the same thing and with small fruits Apple berries.
Often in books you can read that bullfinches are not attracted to the flesh of fruits and berries, and they choose only the seeds, throwing juicy sheath. It is not so. Once I saw a female bullfinch flew into the cherry orchard with their Chicks-fledglings. The young birds deftly bit off ripe fruit with a juicy pulp. If I hadn’t seen bullfinches for doing this, then maybe I would think that cherries devoured by the sparrows. And once I became the witness of how the Snowbird deftly dealt with the blooming of spring lamb on goat willow. A piece otstega him with his strong beak, he ate all of it.
Foraging, bullfinches quite often jump off the snow. Go to the place where had seen feeding on weeds birds and you will again see themselves, and their traces on the snow. Here bullfinch fell on soft snow, short irregular got close to sticking out of a snowdrift sprigs of quinoa and, rising on tiptoe, began to peck out the seeds.
Like other finches, bullfinch jumping. Jumping it short and slow, the length of the jump is 5- 6 cm Moving on loose snow, it often helps itself wings. The prints of its paws resemble the tracks of a Sparrow, but a bit shorter. Imprint size 2.8 x 1.3 cm
The bullfinch is more dense than insect-eating birds. Often has a short “sausages”, whitish at one end.
In the evening on the night these birds fly to the same place where slept the day before. Most often it is a thick tree, sometimes tall old tree, and sometimes low, but thick. The number of dung under the branches, where he slept with the bullfinch, it is possible to assume how long the bird used to spend the night. Sometimes bullfinches can spend the night in unusual places. Once the footprints in the snow I deciphered as short-eared owl found a place to stay Snowbird under the creases on the snow-covered cattail swamp and ate a bird near the place of capture.
The plumage of a bullfinch is very peculiar. Even in individual feathers can be read accurately. The male has bright pink feathers on the chest and abdomen, in the female smoky-brown. Flight and tail feathers of these birds are black with bright blue shimmer.
Most often, the bullfinch victims hawks-sparrowhawks. Sometimes die from-hawks teteriatnikov. They suffer from domestic cats. This can be found inspecting the place of the meals predators.
