Flocking finches!

Not because they keep emptying the feeders....
but...
We've noticed in the last week that there is quite a large flock* of European Goldfinches [Carduelis carduelis] Chardonneret élégant flying around here....
something normally associated with the winter months
[alright... I know it is cold enough].

One of our Goldfinches

There are three possibilities for this behaviour....
Firstly, that these are bachelor boys from last years broods that haven't found a mate... but those groups are normally smaller.
Secondly, that it is just too cold and wet to nest, with not enough food available... so they've regrouped for safety in numbers.
Finally, there isn't enough cover to nest in.

The last could have something to do with the heavy clearance that is going on on the riverbanks, but I doubt it as, in the scheme of things it is removing very little of the actual available cover.
A few tens of metres either way there will be brambles and blackthorn... with more on the wood edges.
However, it could be as a direct result of the very slow growth in some of the vegetation that they normally nest in... the bramble especially!

Dead bramble that provides no cover....

...if you follow the willow trunk down you will see it through the dead clump.

 Our brambles [Rubus ssp] haven't got going at all yet... the freeze in February hit them very hard, killing off most of the exposed shoots and buds... those that weren't tried to open in the exceptionally warm March... only to be hit by another blast of heavy frost just as they had done so.

The brown patch is a huge clump of bramble by the last of the five pollards.

You can't kill bramble that way, but it now has to come from the base, or form adventitious buds up surviving stems and grow from those. Whichever way it happens, this is a very slow process to begin with and will probably delay nesting for weeks for some species.


* more than 40.