Not many people imagine what a finch looks like, even though this bird has been known to us since childhood. In its structure it resembles a sparrow, but its temperament, lifestyle and habits are not at all similar to its brother. If you want to see this unpretentious creature, take a walk through dense dense forests, go to city alleys and squares, maybe you will get lucky. We will describe in detail how to spot a bird among other inhabitants of green fauna in this article.
If not for its color, the common finch could easily be confused with a sparrow. But unlike its feathered companion, the bird’s plumage acquires brightness and contrast every year. The gray-blue crown smoothly flows into the neck of the same color. The back is a rich burgundy shade and the breast is a mixture of ocher and red brick. The beginning of the tail is indicated by a greenish-brown color, the continuation is indicated by gray feathers with a yellow border. The underparts as a whole have white plumage. The bird's wings, like its forehead, are black, but have two prominent white stripes.
The body length of the finch reaches 20 cm, and it weighs only 25-30g. The plumage of females and males has pronounced differences. Males, especially during breeding, become brighter, the neck becomes blue or dark blue. The chest, cheeks and throat of the bird are painted in burgundy tones. The female's feathers are not so prominent, so distinguishing them from the opposite sex is not difficult.
How the finch lives and where it lives
Finches live in European forests, North Africa, as well as in Siberia, the Far East and other regions of Russia. Birds choose coniferous or deciduous trees for their home. Their nests can be found in cool forests, mainly where trees are densely packed next to each other. Birds do not like humid climates, areas near swamps and river branches. In urban environments, they can often be seen in green areas, squares, gardens and even in cemeteries.
Finches are considered to be migratory birds, but part of the flock may remain at home for the winter. Adult individuals that decide to go south flock into groups of fifty or one hundred birds and fly to neighboring regions: to the south of Russia, the shores of the Black or Mediterranean Sea. During the flight, the finch can accelerate up to 50 kilometers in one hour, so the flight takes quite a short time.
Interesting fact: finches that stay at home for the winter gather in small flocks and settle in fields and meadows. Finches and sparrows begin to flock to them, which they happily accept.
Unusual habits of birds
Finches fly away for the winter with the first onset of frost, and return with the first warmth of spring. From the word “chill” the name of these birds appeared. In the old days there were two beliefs. First: if you meet a bird in March, then a thaw will come. And second: if you heard the singer in the fall, expect lower temperatures and frosts.
Finches do not live long, about 12 years. While singing, they throw their heads back so much that they forget about the danger that surrounds them, and as a result they die. The only thing that saves the bird is that it sings its songs while sitting on a high tree branch.
Songs of the finch
The common finch is a beautiful bird that begins its trills in the spring and sings until summer. By the beginning of August, the finch's voice is heard less and less often. His song begins with a thin whistle and continues with a ringing, rolling trill. One or two beats sound, persistently repeated over and over again, and end with a characteristic sharp note.
Those who like to watch finches have long learned to distinguish between the knees. The birds sing for about five seconds, then fall silent for a moment and repeat it all over again.
With its songs, the common, or as it is also called - slender, finch is able to transmit certain signals to its fellows. Sounds can indicate fear, anxiety, aggression, attract a female, and also give a command to take off. Previously, decorative finches with an excellent voice could often be found in apartments, but today the bird is rarely bred at home.
What does a finch eat?
The bird has a hard beak, dense facial muscles and a unique arch of the upper palate. Thanks to this structure, the finch calmly bites through various shells and shells of insects.
The finch's diet is dominated by:
- seeds;
- leaves, buds and tree bark;
- berries;
- flowers;
- various caterpillars, spiders, ants and bugs.
Plowmen and landowners swear at petty pranksters, but in fact they are more accurately called helpers. Birds are very fond of weed seeds, and thus save crops from harmful plants. Finches also destroy weevils, caterpillars and other pests on agricultural land.
How does a singer behave in captivity?
As mentioned above, finches used to be often kept in home apartments. Nowadays this is very rare, because the price for a singer is quite high. In addition, he may not show his talent for a long time - once in a cage, the bird initially gets used to it and adapts to the situation. Ornithologists have proven that birds live much shorter in an aviary than in nature.
There are several nuances to the captive keeping of finches. If the pet begins to sing, then trills will sound in the presence of people as long as they stand still. As soon as a person moves, the bird will immediately become frightened, starting to fight against the walls of the enclosure. At such moments he can simply kill himself. To prevent tragic situations, the cage must be covered with dense material.
It happens that a finch wakes up at night, jumps around the cage, but since it doesn’t see well in the dark, it can miss and hit itself. Therefore, in the dark you need to turn on a small lamp. Such actions will help the bird navigate and adapt to new conditions.
The diet of a songbird in captivity is also quite peculiar. She prefers only fresh bugs and plants. Preparing a diet causes a lot of trouble for owners. In addition, the finch often suffers from overeating and eye disease. Therefore, there are fewer people wanting to have one at home every year.
Puberty and reproduction
Males and females after wintering begin to appear in their homeland from mid-March to mid-April. Having acclimatized, they begin nesting. Most often, birds choose the crowns of trees or the bases of branches as a place for their home. They create a nest that is as invisible as possible to predators and people. The building materials are twigs, grass, moss, dry leaves, and lichens. The bottom is covered with wool and feathers gathered around. To prevent the structure from falling apart, the finches fasten it together with threads of cobwebs.
The male finch becomes frisky and fussy during the period of maturation and nesting. He jumps from branch to branch, gets into fights and sings loudly. At such moments, the male looks disheveled: he pulls up his feathers and retracts his neck. The female finch, which has attracted the attention of her suitor, sits down next to her, raises her tail, throws back her head and begins to quietly sing “zi-zi-zi.” This way she makes it clear that the chosen partner is not indifferent to her.
Chaffinch chicks
At one time, a female finch lays four to seven eggs. They do not exceed 2 centimeters in size and have a blue-green tint with pink splashes. For 11-13 days, the expectant mother incubates the offspring, while the future father feeds her. It’s true that he doesn’t do this often; he mostly sings and gets into fights with neighbors who fly into the nesting area. In one season, a female can lay eggs twice.
Newborn chicks are fluffy and soft. The body is covered with gray down, only the forehead and chest remain bald. But on the head there are feathers sticking out in different directions, reminiscent of a funny hat. After two weeks, the babies fledge and become like their mother. As a rule, both parents feed them. They bring insects, larvae, and mosquitoes, but the majority of their diet consists of caterpillars. After a month, the small finches switch to plant foods, become independent and leave their parental nests.
If you liked this article, like it and write your observations in the comments. We'd love to read your thoughts on finches.
Winged Wanderers
Timings of arrival and departure of birds
The timing of arrival and departure of various bird species is not only educational, but also of some practical interest. This is especially true for arrival times. The timing of field work and, in many ways, the fate of the harvest depend on the course of spring. There are many popular signs that predict the weather in spring and summer. Many of them are associated with birds. In the course of spring phenomena in the life of birds, one can determine the speed of snow melting, plowing and sowing conditions, feed harvest and much more. The friendly flight of birds speaks of the upcoming friendly spring; flight of flocks at high altitude - about the upcoming heavy flood; the early arrival of cranes - about a friendly, spore-filled spring; larks - about warm spring. It was believed that if waterfowl arrived fat and not emaciated, the spring would be cold and long.
The arrival of some common bird species determined the start of many agricultural activities more accurately than calendar dates. For example, the rooks have arrived - it’s time for gardeners to repair greenhouses and prepare seeds; The larks have appeared - get the hives. Forty days after the arrival of the starlings, they began to sow buckwheat, and with the appearance of lapwings, turnip seeds were selected for sowing. After the arrival of swifts at the end of May, flax was supposed to be sown. The return of birds was a sign of important changes in nature for the farmer. The arrival of larks meant the beginning of clearing the fields of snow and the appearance of numerous thawed patches. It coincided with the Annunciation (April 7), when birds were supposed to be released from their cages and the “larks” were baked. After the arrival of the finches, there is usually a slight cooling. With the arrival of wagtails, rivers open up. The appearance of seagulls means the imminent end of ice drift, and the return of flocks of lapwings is associated with the beginning of heavy floods.
At the beginning of this century, the famous Russian phenologist and naturalist D.N. Kaigorodov organized a whole network of correspondent-observers who collected data on the progress of the spring arrival of common known species of birds in the forest belt of Russia. Based on the analysis and generalization of more than 25 thousand observations, he marked on the map the places where rooks, storks, cuckoos and other birds appeared simultaneously in the spring. The lines connecting these places - isochrones - show the features of the course of the spring migration, its speed, direction, connection with changes in air temperature and other meteorological conditions. For example, rooks return to all nesting sites in the European part of the USSR in just 5 weeks. They move from southwest to northeast at an average speed of 55 km per day. The cuckoo flies about 80 km per day, the white stork - 60 km. The more observations that form the basis of such calculations, the more accurate they will be. Unfortunately, the number of volunteer correspondents providing ornithological specialists with accurate phenological data has now sharply decreased. But they could bring invaluable benefits to both ornithologists and agricultural specialists, provide significant practical assistance in assessing changes in the natural conditions of large areas over a number of years, in predicting the timing of sowing and harvesting in various areas, etc. School nature calendar - this is the continuation and development of the folk calendar, which still helps farmers in the struggle for the harvest. In the 1920s, the calendar of bird arrivals was carefully kept at the Biological Station for Young Naturalists in Sokolniki (Moscow) and transferred to the Department of Agrometeorological Service of the USSR Ministry of Agriculture.
Information about the occurrence of various seasonal phenomena in nature, including the arrival and departure of common bird species, coming from institutions and individual correspondents, is regularly published by Hydrometeoizdat for periods of 10-12 years.
Each specific year, the arrival dates of birds differ slightly from the long-term average: some are more, others are less. We can recommend a task for members of a biological circle: keep track of when they met this or that bird for the first time in the year, and compare this number with the average arrival date indicated in the table, and then think about how its shift can be explained. The arrival usually occurs in several “waves”, and between them there are periods of relative calm.
| Arrival wave | Bird species | Date of arrival (long-term average) | Signs of spring or type of agricultural work |
| I | Rook | 18-19.III | Preparatory work |
| II | Starling | 30.III | Preparatory work |
| Finch | 30.III | Short-term cold snap | |
| Lark | 1.IV | The appearance of thawed patches in the fields | |
| III | White wagtail | 5.IV | Beginning of ice drift |
| Lapwing | 5-7.IV | Preparing seeds for the garden | |
| Black-headed gull | 8.IV | The end of the ice drift | |
| Robin | 8.IV | The end of the ice drift | |
| IV | Redstart | 17.IV | |
| mallard duck | 18.IV | ||
| Gray crane | 18.IV | ||
| Chiffchaff | 18.IV | ||
| Pied Flycatcher | 19.IV | Start of plowing | |
| V | Cuckoo | 27-30.IV | Noticeable warming |
| Warbler rattle | 27-30.IV | Start of sowing vegetables (carrots, beets) | |
| Warbler | 27-30.IV | ||
| Wryneck | 29.IV | ||
| Killer whale swallow | 30.IV | Sowing | |
| VI | Warbler | 5.V | The height of the sowing season |
| Gray flycatcher | 8.V | The height of the sowing season | |
| Nightingale | 8-10.V | The height of the sowing season | |
| Mocking | 11.V | The height of the sowing season | |
| VII | Oriole | 16.V | Planting cucumbers, cabbage, peas |
| Shrike | 21.V | Sowing barley and flax | |
| Lentils | 21.V | Sowing barley and flax | |
| Landrail | 21.V | Sowing barley and flax | |
| Quail | 21.V | Sowing barley and flax | |
| Swift | 21.V | Sowing barley and flax |
Observations of the passage of birds can be carried out at any point in the middle zone, but it is better on one of the small or large flyways - on the coast of a reservoir, a strip of forest among open spaces, in a valley, at the edge of a forest. You can watch the flight just on the outskirts of the city, and at the height of it, from the window of a multi-story building. It would be nice to have binoculars, at least theatrical ones. At a certain hour (preferably early in the morning) for several days in a row it is interesting to count how many and what kind of birds were seen flying past. Such observations make it possible to monitor the dynamics of the migration of several species (beginning, peak, end), the replacement of some birds during migration by others, and the general end of an intensive migration. Of course, you need to observe daily, patiently, and at the same time be able to distinguish common bird species from a distance (Fig. 13).
Rice. 13. Silhouettes of birds in flight (according to Sungurov, 1960):1 - swift; 2- barn swallow; 3 - seagull; 4 - sparrow; 5 - crested lark: 6 - wagtail; 7 - bee-eater; 8 - starling; 9 - thrush; 10 - owl; 11 - sparrowhawk; 12 - partridge; 13 - jackdaw; 14 - pheasant; 15 - large curlew; 16 - rook; 17 - city swallow; 18 - snipe; 19 - kestrel; 20 - forty; 21 - lapwing; 22 - woodcock.
To the question: Does the finch fly to hot countries in winter? THANK YOU! given by the author Yergey the best answer is No, finches do not fly to Africa... Some birds (especially old males) winter in Central Europe, the rest fly south (mainly to the Mediterranean). It is also common in winter in the foothill forests of the Caucasus. It is not afraid of the cold and arrives in early spring, when there is snow on the fields. And it flies away in late autumn, in the cold, as people say “chilly” time. That's why they called it a chaffinch. The name of this bird is given according to the time of departure. In our area, the finch is a nomadic and migratory bird, arriving in Moscow from wintering grounds in April.
Reply from Yovetlana Dubrovsky[guru]
Most finches are migratory birds. Many of them spend the winter in nesting areas - mostly males. This fact was already noticed by C. Linnaeus, who, while looking for a name for this species, chose the word “widower” (coelebs). Finches spend the winter in the south and west of Europe. Their spring migration occurs in March - April, and their autumn migration in September - October. Flocks, as a rule, are divided by gender - males arrive at nesting sites earlier than females and immediately occupy nesting areas, the boundaries of which are marked by intense singing (sedentary males sometimes sing as early as February). After mating, the female immediately begins choosing a place for the nest. The nest is considered one of the best among those that birds build: it is firmly woven from moss and soft stems, the outside is camouflaged with lichen from the trees where finches nest, as well as insect cocoons and cobwebs, which makes it almost invisible.
Reply from Say a word[guru]
Reply from chevron[guru]
The arrival of finches is one of the first dates of spring after the return of rooks, starlings and larks. There is slush outside, a brown mixture of melted snow and mud. A warm and humid breeze, full of spring scents, is blowing. In the gardens, great tits loudly repeat their ringing chant: “chi-chi-fi... chi-chi-fi..." In the villages, near the barns and straw sweeps, the buntings are already humming their ringing "zin-zin-zin..." It is at this time that we hear the first, leading finches. Their sharp “ping-ping-ping”, similar to the cry of tits, is heard loudly from the tops of bare trees. The singing has not yet been heard. The birds are obviously tired and silent. If you come closer and look through binoculars, you can see that these are only males. They have a brownish chest and cheeks, a noticeably dark top, bluish-gray head, and distinct white stripes on the wings - the most characteristic feature in the finch's coloration. There are no females (grayish-brown, almost monochromatic) yet. They arrive a few days later. Therefore, Linnaeus, two hundred years ago, called the chaffinch (in Latin) a “single” finch. Flocks of finches quickly move in the spring to summer places, usually returning to their homeland, and sometimes even to the same gardens and groves where they nested last year. By the end of April, the birds have already filled their entire nesting area - in the European part of Russia from Crimea and the Caucasus to the White Sea, and in Asia almost all of Western Siberia - from Kazakhstan to Tobolsk and east to the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Outside Russia, the finch lives in summer throughout Europe and northwestern Africa, as well as in the mountains of Asia Minor, Palestine and Iran. In the Caucasus, Crimea, Trans-Caspian region and Western Europe, several subspecies of finch have been identified, differing in the shades of color of the back and abdomen. Our finches winter in Transcaucasia, and Western Siberian ones - in Kazakhstan. To the south, wintering grounds reach Egypt, but in warm winters some birds linger on the southern coast of Crimea, and sometimes in Ukraine and even further north, almost to the middle zone of the European part of Russia. A day or two after arrival, if the weather is not too severe, you can hear The first song of the finch is a cheerful, distinct trill, sounding like “fu-fu-fu-di-di-di-la-la-la-vi-chiu.” This last sharp cry of “wi-chiu” (“stroke”) is very characteristic of the chaffinch’s song. You can recognize a finch by it even among a polyphonic forest choir. It is worth dwelling in more detail on the song of the finch. It usually consists of several knees. The song is not continuous, as, for example, that of a lark or a goldfinch, but is completely complete, has its own definite beginning, middle and end. Having sung once, the finch starts again, but sometimes changes some syllables (most often the end). There are singers who have two or three different tunes, performed in turn. Each male's song is structured and sounds unique (preserving the general finch type), so that with a certain skill one can distinguish several singers by their voices. One finch has a short song, as if “chopped”, another has a noticeably longer, “scattered” song, a third has a double song, etc., with endless variations. Sometimes a finch constructs its song from borrowed parts of songs and from the calls of other birds (the so-called “copying”). The sounds of others are especially often borrowed for the first part of a song. Sometimes a finch starts out just like a tree pipit, a bunting, or even imitating a river warbler, and then continues “like a finch” and always ends with its usual “stroke.” Often, at the end of the song, after the last sharp sound, the “stroke,” the finch makes a “push”: it ends with “whi-chiu,” and then “kick.” Some individuals even make two pushes. Among amateurs, this shock is considered a defect in the song.
- an interesting and beautiful bird of the order Passeriformes (Passeriformes) family Finches (Fringillidae). His singing is sometimes mistaken for everyone’s favorite song of the nightingale, surprising at the absence of characteristic trills. Finches give the impression of being unafraid birds. However, this opinion is refuted by the owners and sellers of finches.
What does a finch look like?
Common finch (Fringilla coelebs) is a slender bird the size of a sparrow. Its length is about 14 - 16 cm. Other types may have different sizes. For example, the mountain finch is about 20 cm. Males of the common finch look very elegant during the mating season. They have a bright bluish-gray head and neck, and on the chestnut back the gray tint is almost invisible. To the portrait of a male finch, it is worth adding two bright stripes on each wing; burgundy throat, crop, cheeks and lower body; a greenish-yellow loin and a black-brown tail. In autumn (after molting), the colors of the plumage fade, acquiring calmer ocher-brown tones. The female finch is brownish-gray in color, darker on the upper body and head. The outfit of the grown chicks is more reminiscent of the coloration of female finch.
finch singing
Ornithologists describe the beautiful song of the finch in a language that only they understand: “few-few-few-la-la-la-di-di-di-vi-chiu.” They call it a loud, rolling trill. The call sounds like “pink-pink”, “rrryu”. This is part of the melody before the ringing, perky trill. Each "verse" usually ends with short sharp notes, i.e. with a flourish. The finch sings (“rumps” or “kicks”) more readily at sunrise and during the day in sunny weather. In cloudy weather, the melodies are not so expressive. A frightened finch may make “hew-hew”, “hee-hee”, or “hew-hew” sounds.
By the end of July, the songs of finches are heard less and less often. The birds sing no longer as loudly, not at all as much as before.
Where do finches live, where do they fly, and what do they eat?
The chaffinch is known not only here, but also in many other European, Asian and American countries. This migratory (in the middle zone) bird is found in forests, forest-steppes, city squares, parks and courtyards planted with trees. She also sings in Moscow parks and forest parks, for example, in Timiryazevsky Park. Finches are absolutely devoid of caution; they often move along the ground in search of food and often find themselves “under the feet” of passers-by or in the claws of animals. The finch's flight is fast and undulating.
Finches nest in pairs, raising 4 to 7 chicks in cup-shaped nests. Nests are built in trees in the forks of branches or on branches (at a height of 2 - 18 m, usually up to 4 m). Both parents feed the chicks by bringing them insects. By mid-June, the first chicks fled in the middle zone; the finches are preparing for the second clutch in July.
Adult birds not only feed on insects, but also enjoy finding recently sown seeds, causing displeasure to people. Finches also eat weed seeds, small bugs, especially weevils, and caterpillars. Less common than ants and bedbugs.
In the middle zone, the common finch flies to warm countries for the winter. It rarely remains to spend the winter in the same place; sometimes it wanders towards neighboring, warmer regions. Some finches (from the southern regions of Russia) have adapted to roam, and sometimes stay for the winter in the places where they lived in the summer. Flocks of 40 - 50 birds fly away from September to the end of October. Mainly to Southern Europe. The bird often spends the winter in the Mediterranean and the Caucasus. It flies fast, flight speed is up to 55 km per hour. In the spring (from late March to April), finches appear again in our area.
Finches do not live long. They often die due to their carelessness. Especially when singing, when the finch throws back its head and completely forgets about all the dangers. The only thing that saves him is that the bird sings its songs more often while on a tree branch.
This is how A.N. describes his meeting with the finch. Formozov in the book “Six Days in the Forests”:
Male finches occupied every corner of the forest and now thundered with ringing trills towards the rising sun. One of them - clean, slender with wide white bandages on his wings - sang, jumping along the road, looking for food and did not want to fly off when the boys appeared. When he was finally frightened away, another finch, the owner of this corner of the spruce forest, rushed at the fluttering bird, which had landed ten steps from the road. The host finch and the trespassing finch started such a fight that they curled up into a fluffy ball with two splayed tails and four wings. In this form, they fell to the ground with a squeak from the branch where the first skirmish took place. “What, it’s terrible!” - Grisha laughed, watching as the plucked finch guiltily hurried to its plot. He was accompanied by the fervent song of the winner, who expelled the newcomer from where he himself intended to nest and where he was waiting for the female (male finches arrive several days earlier than females).
Finch in a cage
Finches are sold to live in cages and sing beautifully. However, this is not the most suitable bird for captivity. Here is what Konrad Z. Lorenz, an excellent expert on bird behavior, wrote about this:
One of the most debilitating tortures you can endure in your room is the constant fluttering of the wings of a bird struggling out of timidity in its cage. You have purchased a finch - it is cute and sings beautifully. Since you want not only to hear the singing, but also to see the singer himself, then, without hesitation, you remove the linen blanket with which the previous owner, an experienced expert on finches, prudently draped the cage. The bird takes the change for granted and sings as before, but only as long as you don't move. You can only dare to make the slowest and most careful movements, otherwise the distraught bird will frantically throw its body onto the bars of the cage, so that you begin to fear for its head and plumage. At first you think that the captive will get used to it and become tame, but here you are deeply mistaken. So far I have only seen a few finches that have become accustomed to a person walking blithely around the cage itself.
There is one more important “detail” that Konrad Z. Lorenz warns about. This is the nightly disturbance of caged birds. It coincides with the period of migration of migratory birds. The finch can be protected by keeping a tiny electric light on at night, the dim light of which allows it to see the twigs and perch.
The bird storms the bars of its prison not because it wants to fly somewhere. She just wakes up, can’t sleep and starts fluttering around on the perches. She cannot see anything in the dark, so again and again she blindly stumbles into the walls of the cage.
And one more note from this knowledgeable person:
The songs of our various warblers and most finches do not sound too loud in the room - perhaps with the exception of the finch, which can irritate you with the constant repetition of its ringing trill.
Nowadays, finches are rarely kept in a cage. Previously, this vocal bird was often found in captivity, although it was very expensive. Surprisingly, finches live much longer in captivity than in the wild. Despite the fact that they often suffer from obesity, eye diseases and blindness. As a rule, these birds are kept one at a time in a cage, with curtains to prevent the finch from injuring itself by being frightened by a person. There are many problems with diet. Hearing a bird but not seeing it is not appealing to all songbird lovers. Most likely, this is the main reason why finches cease to be vocal recluses.
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