Ilkley North West Trail #8: Chaffinch - Caged No More
This is the 8th of a 13-cache series which takes you on a 4.3km trail around some of the lovely countryside between Middleton and Austby immediately to the northwest of Ilkley above the north bank of the Wharfe. Allowing for an easy pace, stopping for caches | to admire the view | spot birds the trail should take you about 3 hours or so.
See GC8Q381 Ilkley NorthWest Trail #1: Intro & Start for background info on the trail and parking waypoints. See Gallery for a map of the trail showing parking spots and approximate cache locations.
The cache, a screw-capped, camo-taped plastic tube, is hidden at the side of this lane running east from Owler Park Road past Tivoli and Calvary, from which there are some fine views - especially south to the Wharfe valley.
As I was looking for a hide location, this bird, which is usually seen before it is heard, was singing from a nearby tree - a very familiar and easily recognisable song (see/listen here).
The (common) chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is one of the most widespread and abundant birds in Britian and Ireland. It is a small passerine in the finch family with some 19 sub-species of which the one occurring here is the nominate F.c.coelebs. The male bird has a strong voice and sings from exposed perches to attract a mate (listen here [song] and here [call]).
Outside breeding season, they mainly eat seeds and other plant material found on the ground. They often forage in open country in large flocks. They seldom take food directly from plants and only very rarely use their feet for handling food.
During breeding season, their diet switches to invertebrates, especially defoliating caterpillars. They forage in trees and also occasionally make short sallies to catch insects in the air. Young are entirely fed with invertebrates which include caterpillars, aphids, earwigs, spiders and grubs (beetle larvae).
Eggs and nestlings are predated by crows, squirrels, cats and probably also stoats and weasels. Later spring 
clutches are less affected - most likely due to increased vegetation making nests more difficult to find. Unlike the closely related brambling, it is not parasitised by the common cuckoo.
It was once popular as a caged songbird and large numbers of wild birds were trapped and sold. At the end of the 19th century, trapping even depleted the number of birds in London parks!
In 1882, the English publisher Samuel Orchart Beeton issued a guide on the care of caged birds and included the recommendation: 'To parents and guardians plagued with a morose and sulky boy, my advice is, buy him a chaffinch.'
Competitions were held where bets were placed on which caged common chaffinch would repeat its song the greatest number of times in 15 minutes. A good singer was worth a lot of money – as much as 50 shillings, a considerable sum in those days.
The birds were sometimes blinded with a hot needle in the belief that this encouraged them to sing. This practice is the subject of the poem The Blinded Bird by the English author Thomas Hardy, which contrasts the cruelty involved in blinding the birds with their zestful song.
In Great Britain, the practice of keeping common chaffinches as pets declined after the trapping of wild birds was outlawed by the Wild Birds Protection Acts of 1880-1896.
It is still a popular pet bird in some European countries. In Belgium, the traditional sport of vinkenzetting pits males against one another in a contest for the most bird calls in an hour.
Some (more) QI Chaffinch facts . . .
- In winter, all-male chaffinch flocks may be seen, hence its Latin species name coelebs (bachelor) and its old country name of bachelor bird. It takes its common name from chaff used in the nosebags of working horses as it fed on the spilt chaff.
- Cecil Rhodes, the founder of Rhodesia, introduced chaffinches to South Africa in 1898 and they are still found around the Cape.
- In winter, Scandinavian migrants boost Britain's chaffinch population.
- A singing cock will sing 5-6 times/minute, and up to 3,000 times daily!
- They have regional accents, with slight differences in the typical song depending on where in the country the bird lives.
- They thrive in gardens with plenty of trees, with oaks as favourite.
- It is probably Britain's most adaptable bird - found from central London parks to northern Scotland birchwoods. Originally woodland birds, they are now also common in farmland and suburban gardens.
- Females usually migrate farther in winter than males.
- They are one of the longest-lived of our passerines, hence the relatively low reproduction rate - unlike many small passerines, they usually only have one brood a year, rearing 4 young on average.
- Using ring-recovery data, in Britain the survival rate for juveniles in their first year was 53% and the adult annual survival rate was 59%. Typical lifespan is estimated at only 3 years but the maximum age recorded is 15 years and 6 months for a bird in Switzerland.
See here for detailed & comprehensive info on this common, colourful and tuneful bird.
See videos here (singing), here (female on display), here (male/female ID), here (feeding time), here (frozen in flight)