Among the many colourful birds of the UK, in my opinion, the goldfinch has to be up there as one of the most beautiful. These small birds have a wingspan of 21 to 25 cm and grow to between 14 and 19 grams in weight. But what goldfinches lack in size they make up for in colour and personality. Adult birds have Red, white and black heads with cream and white undersides and cream backs. Their wings are mostly black with white spots towards the tips and one of their defining features is a patch of bright gold feathers which becomes a bar when they are in flight. Males usually have more and deeper red markings and longer beaks, but this isn’t always easy to tell from a distance.
Goldfinches are social birds, often roaming from place to place in small flocks, sometimes mixed with other species. A flock of goldfinches is known as a charm although this has nothing to do with how charming they are, it originates from the old English word C’irm with describes the birds twittering song which I’ll share with you later in this video. Their habitat is traditionally farmland and open countryside but they are becoming increasingly common in urban areas, including along roadsides, in parks and in overgrown wasteland and they can become regular visitors to garden bird feeders. Their diet is mostly made up of seeds, particularly thistles and teasels but they will also take sunflower seeds and nyger seeds from bird feeders. When they are rearing chicks they do sometimes eat insects and invertebrates.
Goldfinches in the UK start to breed later in the year than a lot of other species, probably due to their reliance on seeds. This begins around the beginning of may when a pair will form and begin the construction of a cup shaped nest of grass, lichen, roots and moss, lined with wool and hair. Once the nest is complete the female will lay between 4 and 6 pale eggs with brown splotching. These eggs measure around 17mm in length and once the clutch is complete, the female will incubate them alone for 12 to 13 days. At first the chicks are featherless and pink. Both parents bring a constant supply of food to them in the nest and as a result, they grow rapidly. By just 13 to 18 days of age, they are ready to fledge. The parents, especially the father continue to feed the young for several weeks after they leave the nest when they join larger charms and learn how to fend for themselves. Young goldfinches do not have the bright head markings of their parents and don’t get these until their first moult. In a single year each pair of goldfinches can nest 2 or three times, sometimes rearing young way into September.
Goldfinches are found across the whole of the UK except for some upland parts of Scotland and they are also found across mainland Europe, north Africa, west and central Asia. They are an introduced species in Australia, new Zealand and Uruguay. Around 1.7million pairs currently breed in the UK each year, which represents an increase of more than 100% since the 1970s and their numbers are still thought to be increasing. Some goldfinches in their northern range in Europe and in the UK do migrate south for the winter, heading towards Spain and the Mediterranean whilst some also stick around for the colder months. They have an average lifespan of 2 years but as usual with wild birds the oldest known individual lived much longer, to 10 months and 2 days of age.
#gardenbirds #britishbirds #birdwatching

Thanks to Ian Wicks, Sabir Bapir and WhiteBlackbird for letting me use some of their nesting footage, their channels can be found here:
   • Goldfinch Nest  
   • I filmed a nest with young Goldfinches  
   • Goldfinch the movie  

Some of the other images and footage used in this video was is licenced under creative commons, the originals and their licence details can be found here:
   • Aggressive Goldfinches  
   • European Goldfinch On A Sunflower  
   • Goldfinches Feeding on Dandelion Seed...  
   • European Goldfinch foraging technique...  
   • Goldfinch feeding on Common or Black ...  
   • Feeding a European Goldfinch - Cardue...  
   • European Goldfinch fledglings foragin...  
   • Goldfinches feeding on Nyjer Seed  
   • Distelfinken - Young European Goldfin...  
   • Goldfinch / Szczygieł  
   • Euopean Goldfinches use synthetic fib...  
   • Jilguero / European Goldfinch (Cardue...  
   • Goldfinch drinking - 29 April 2019  
   • Junger Stieglitz - European Goldfinch...  
   • Goldfinch2  
   • Jilguero europeo (Carduelis carduelis)  
   • O canto do Pintassilgo (Carduelis car...  
   • Carduelis carduelis juv bath 180808n036  
   • Putter (Carduelis carduelis)  
   • Stieglitz (Carduelis carduelis)  
eggs: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...