Bullfinches are regular visitors to the park. Despite the male’s glorious colouring, they are quiet, retiring types, rarely seen. DKG took this picture in April 2019 early one Saturday morning when the park was pretty much empty of visitors.
We hope bullfinches nest here; our open mixed woodland, ancient hawthorn hedges and blackthorn thicket are exactly the sort of territory they choose if they can find it.
They are generalist feeders; they eat insects, berries, seeds and flower buds. Bullfinches were once considered a pest by fruit farmers; they ate the flower buds in the spring and returned for the fruit in the autumn. For centuries parishes paid a bounty of a penny on the head of each bullfinch killed.
They pair up in the spring and the female lays up to seven eggs in a loosely built nest of twigs, moss and lichen, lined with a layer of fine roots The female builds the nest alone, up high in thick cover, and incubates the eggs but the male shares the task of feeding the nestlings.
Below are pictures taken by DKG in the summer of 2018 of a bullfinch feeding in the park on dock seeds.
Conservation Status
The British Trust for Ornithology says:
” Bullfinch is currently listed as an ‘amber’ species of conservation concern because of its recent breeding population decline. Bullfinch numbers declined steeply during 1977–82 especially in farmland. The decline eased during the mid 1980s and has upturned since 2000. However, the UK numbers are currently 36% lower than in 1967. ”
Southwick Country Park Nature Reserve 
Bullfinches used to bring their family to eat our Rowan tree berries but unfortunately the tree was blown down in the recent storms
That’s really sad. Plant another fruit tree quickly; perhaps the bullfinches won’t notice.
We had two Rowen trees, one with red berries and one with yellow berries. The bullfinches only ate the red berries but perhaps now they will try the yellow ones!