What kind of bird with a red breast is sitting on a branch in front of the window on a wonderful and fine winter day? Of course, the bullfinch! All over the world of these birds, there are only 9 varieties. Probably, there is no need to explain that the bullfinch was the most widespread and extremely popular. We’ll talk about him.
"Table of grades"
From the point of view of zoological taxonomy, the common bullfinch, or a bird with a red breast, belongs to the family Finch. Their closest relatives are carduelis, finches, crossbills, and the most distant are canaries.
Appearance
Bullfinches are not inferior in size to sparrows, but they seem more dense due to their characteristic physique. Their beak is very sharp, massive and conical. The eyes resemble small black beads. The head and body almost merge due to the short neck. A bird with a red breast (photo 1, 2, 3) has very short wings and, on the contrary, a moderately long tail.
It is widely believed that the bullfinch is a fairly bright bird. However, this is not always the case. They are rather unprepossessing: on their heads they have a black “cap” covering their eyes. The wings and tail are also black, and the back is gray. The color of the abdomen in males and females varies markedly. In males, its color varies from grayish-pink to raspberry-bright or orange, in females - gray or brownish.
Food
The red-breasted bird is herbivorous. The diet of bullfinches is based on dry seeds of spruce, maple, ash and other trees. Birds love to peck berries of viburnum, mountain ash, bird cherry. They do not swallow them whole, choosing only seeds. The pulp falls to the ground. Sometimes birds feed on young shoots and flowers, buds. It is extremely rare that they become predators, eating small insects. It should be noted that these are very voracious birds.
Lifestyle
All bullfinches are exclusively forest birds inhabiting dense and dense forests. They try to avoid open space, and during the nesting period they stay away from the human home. An ordinary bird with a red breast prefers dark spruce forests rather than light pine forests. In addition, bullfinches are both settled and migratory. It all depends on the feed conditions of a particular area. If the year turned out to be fruitful, then the birds hibernate in the same place where they grew, and if not, fly away to the south.
The overall quality of all bullfinches, without exception, is their secrecy and caution. That is why in the summer they are very difficult to see … Yes, friends, you heard right! It is in the summer! Why? Read on!
The Bullfinch Myth
Friends, bullfinches are not fundamentally winter birds! This is a great fallacy! Their appearance in housing in the winter period gave rise to the idea of them as northern birds. However, they inhabit both the tropics and subtropics. The common bullfinch, unlike its relatives, has the most extensive range: from west to east - from Ireland (and Britain) to Sakhalin (and the Kuril Islands), from north to south - from Scandinavia to the Iberian Peninsula. That is why the “winter” bird with the red breast is not so “winter”!
