European Goldfinch
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? Goldfinch |
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| Carduelis carduelis ( Linnaeus, 1758) |
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The Goldfinch or European Goldfinch, Carduelis carduelis, is a small passerine bird of the finch family.
The Goldfinch breeds across Europe and most of Asia in open, partially wooded lowlands. It is resident in the milder west of its range, but migrates from colder regions. It will also make local movements, even in the west, to escape bad weather. This bird is a rare vagrant to eastern North America. In 2005, one was spotted and photographed on a bird feeder in Michigan.
The Goldfinch is 12-13.5 cm (4-5 inches) long and weighs 16 to 22 grams. Sexes are alike, with a red face, black and white head, warm brown upperparts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings. The ivory-coloured bill is long and pointed, and the tail is forked. Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back but are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe.
The food is small seeds such as thistles (the Latin name is from carduus, thistle) and teasels, but insects are also taken when feeding young. The song is a pleasant silvery twittering. They nest in the outer twigs of tall leafy trees, laying four to six eggs which hatch in 11-14 days.
In the winter they group together to from flocks of upto about 40 birds.
The call is a melodic tickeLIT, and the song is a pleasant tinkling medley of trills and twiters, but always including the trisyllabic call phrase or a teLLIT-teLLIT-teLLIT. In earlier times, The Goldfinch was kept as a cagebird for its song.