Chaffinch
Chaffinch
Chaffinches are common garden birds. Because there are so many of them, people tend not to notice how pretty they are. Chaffinches like to eat seeds and small nuts: their beaks are the perfect shape for cracking them open.
Male chaffinches have a pinkish chest and cheeks, and a brown back. Females have a grey chest and cheeks. All chaffinches have dark wings and shoulders with clear white bars on them. That's your best clue that you're looking at a chaffinch!
Size: 15 cm
Sound: the chaffinch sings a loud string of notes, usually from high to low. They like to sing the same tune again and again.
The song of the chaffinch is different all over the country, kind of like a dialect. Do you think a chaffinch from Cork would understand a chaffinch from Dublin?
Noel Reynolds, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Peter Trimming from Croydon, England, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons