One of the most beautiful birds, that has inspired many creators, and even has a movie (and a book) named after it, is the Goldfinch.
Let’s find out more about it!
- The Goldfinch is also known as European goldfinch.
- Its latin name is Carduelis carduelis.
- It’s a small passerine bird in the finch family.
- It is native to Europe, North Africa and western and central Asia.
- It has been introduced to other areas, including Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay.
- The breeding male has a red face with black markings around the eyes, and a black-and-white head.
- The back and flanks are buff or chestnut brown.
- The black wings have a broad yellow bar.
- The tail is black and the rump is white.
- Actually, males and females are very similar.
- You can tell a goldfinch is a female, because females have a slightly smaller red area on the face.
- The goldfinch is often depicted in Italian renaissance paintings of the Madonna and Child.
- The European goldfinch was one of the birds described and illustrated by Swiss naturalist Conrad Gessner in his Historiae animalium of 1555.
- The first formal description was by Carl Linnaeus in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae published in 1758.
- He introduced the binomial name, Fringilla carduelis.
- The European goldfinch is now placed in the genus Carduelis that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760 by tautonomy based on Linneus’s specific epithet.
- Modern molecular genetic studies have shown that the European goldfinch is closely related to the citril finch (Carduelis citrinella) and the Corsican finch (Carduelis corsicana).
- The English word ‘goldfinch’ was used in the second half of the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer in his unfinished The Cook’s Tale: “Gaillard he was as goldfynch in the shawe (Gaily dressed he was as is a goldfinch in the woods)”
- There is a novel named “The Goldfinch”.
- In 2019 the novel became a successful movie.
- The Goldfinch is actually a painting. According to both the novel’s and the movie’s plot a boy in New York is taken in by a wealthy family after his mother is killed in a bombing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In a rush of panic, he steals ‘The Goldfinch’, a painting that eventually draws him into a world of crime.
- The Goldfinch was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014.[
- Amazon selected the novel as the 2013 Best Book of the Year.
- The numbers of finches caught in a year could be huge: in 1860, for example, 132,000 were reputed to have been taken at Worthing in Sussex.
- The collective name for goldfinches, a charm, is derived from the old English c’irm, describing the birds’ twittering song.
- Goldfinches rejoice in a number of old rural names including goldie, gold linnet, redcap and King Harry.
- One old name, thistle finch, reflects the bird’s favourite food.
- In the early 18th century the word goldfinch was used as slang for a very wealthy person.
- Many European populations are migratory, moving to the Mediterranean for the winter.
- Goldfinches are highly social, flocking soon after the breeding season has finished.Autumn flocks may sometimes number thousands of birds.
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