Goldfinch

The sociable Goldfinch, a seed eater, finds the bird-feeders in the Cemetery irresistable.
This species has been sponsored by: 
Jane Tomlinson

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Carduelis carduelis
Family: 
Finches
Family Latin name: 
FRINGILLIDAE
Category: 
Birds
Vernacular names: 

Thistle-tweaker, Thistle Finch

Species description

Species description

Goldfinches can be seen throughout the year in Britain. Their rich and liquid, trilling voice is distinctive, and consists of a trisyllabic phrase. They are small but brightly-coloured birds notable for their bright red faces and yellow wing patches. They are often seen in small groups, dashing hither and thither in search of seeds. Typically, they live for a couple of years, but individuals have been found that are 10 years old.

Goldfinches are seed-eaters. Their preferred food is the seeds of daisies or thistles, which explains their Latin name, Carduelis carduelis, carduus being Latin for thistle.  (A similar linguistic link operates in France where the bird is called a chardonneret, a chardon being a thistle.) One local British name for the Goldfinch is the Thistle Finch. The Anglo-Saxons called Goldfinches thisteltuiges, thistle-tweakers.

This association with thistles has led, in Christian symbolism, to the association of goldfinches with Christ's Passion and the crown of thorns. The goldfinch sometimes appears in paintings of the Madonna and the Christ child. (Perhaps the best known of these is Raphael's Madonna del cardellino or Madonna of the Goldfinch in which the infant John the Baptist, steadied by the Madonna, holds out a goldfinch for the Infant Christ to caress).

Goldfinches were popular as caged birds, even in England, perhaps surprisingly. A craze for this reached its peak in the second half of the 19th century when, in 1860 — according to John Lewis-Stempel in his glorious book Meadowland — 132,000 birds were caught that year in Worthing alone.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
The sociable Goldfinch, a seed eater, finds the bird-feeders in the Cemetery irresistable.

Details

Species family information

Finches are among our most colourful songsters, and familiar garden birds. They are specialist seed-eaters, whose bills vary in size, shape, and stoutness according to the preferred seed diet.

Category information

The earliest feathered dinosaur fossils date from the early Cretaceous, but the ancestry of birds goes further back to Jurassic theropod dinosaurs, which shared a common ancestor with the crocodilians. Well known theropod groups include the tyrannosaurs, allosaurs, and other carnivores. Of surviving bird groups, the most ancient are the ratites (ostriches, rheas, tinamous, moas, kiwis, cassowaries, and emus), followed in evolutionary order by the waterfowl (ducks, geese and swans) and then the land fowl (chickens, turkeys, pheasants and their kin). Heene cemetery’s most ancient bird visitors are the woodpigeons. Strictly, therefore, we ought to refer to birds as dinosaurs, for they are direct descendants. The RSPB would be more accurately restyled as the RSPD. Where known, the conservation status of each bird is given as red, amber, or green, according to its survival potential based on 2016 populations and recent population trends.

Birds are warm-blooded, and have feathers, toothless, beaked jaws, and a strong, lightweight skeleton. They lay hard-shelled eggs. Their hearts have four chambers, and their metabolic rate is high. Although most are adapted for flight, many can also run, jump, swim and dive. Flightless birds retain vestigial wings. Brown, green, and grey are the commonest bird colours, for camouflage.