Chaffinches

We had a male Chaffinch visit our bird table yesterday afternoon. It's the first one I've seen in the garden this year (and probably for two or three years). They're very colourful, with blue-grey heads, pink face and breast and white bars on their wings. It stayed, feeding on the bird table for at least half an hour.

 

This morning, I've seen a female Chaffinch feeding on the ground underneath the feeders on the patio. She's much less colourful than the male, but still has the distinctive white bars on her wings.

Female Chaffinch on the left, with a Dunnock on the right

According to the RSPB, they are the UK's second commonest breeding bird. Well they're definitely not very common in our garden, although we did see a lot of them on a recent trip to College Lake nature reserve.

Wouldn't that be nice, if a pair of Chaffinches moved into the garden. Perhaps we can look forward to babies next spring!