30/05/2023 Crook Road, Kendal, Cumbria

Common Rosefinch: Wow, take a look at this stunning male rosefinch! After a lifetime of only seeing female type, juvenile rosefinch where are nicknamed grotfinch to see a stinking rose red male is something special.

They have a stout and conical bill and the males have brilliant rosy-carmine head, breast and rump; heavy bill; dark brown wings with two indistinct bars, and a white belly. Females and young males are dull-colored with yellowish-brown above, brighter on the rump and greyer on head; buff below, hence their name the grotfinch.

 

A relatively scares bird these can be seen in the UK between May and October more often or not they are seem around the coasts of southern and eastern England, eastern Scotland, and the Northern Isles.

They typically breed from the Danubevalley, Sweden, and Siberia to the Bering Sea; the Caucasus, northern Iran and Afghanistan, the western Himalayas, Tibet and China and Japan. In winter they are found from southern Iran to south-east China, India, Burma, and Indochina. 

So to get a full summer plumage male singing and even chasing ff the resident house sparrows is a real treat.  

After arriving just after first light I could hear their obvious song enervating from a hedgerow close to the end house. The bird eventually popped on to the face overlooking the driveway. 

From there it flew to the opposite end house and and was singing from the brambles and hawthorn hedge close to the garden and Crook Road. 

Before I left it alighted upon the thick bottom telegraph wire and was singing away.

Really please to have finally caught up with it especially after dipping it a few days ago. 

Spurn Migration Festival

Common Rosefinch: Spurn MigFest is a real highlight of the my year, top birds, top company at a top place.

And this year was no exception....well the birds may have been lacking a little, with the odd spot redshank, pied fly and redstart scraping the bottom of a poor bird list barrel.

But the star of the weekend and a brand new bird for me was this common rosefinch. Not the  distinctive male with their brilliant, rosy-carmine heads but an otherwise dull, brown, little bird.

Yet still very much the star bird.

For me Spurn MigFest is always remembered by laughs and drinks we have on the Saturday night in the Crown & Anchor with some good friends. However this year I will remember sleeping in my cramped car as my tend got severally flooded out, oh and the rose finch, of course.