Brambling

Overview

Brambling: Medium-sized finch with jet-black hood extending to upper back with orange shoulder patches, throat, and breast. Underparts are buff with black-spotted flanks. Wings are black with white and orange bars. Bounding flight, rapid wing beats alternating with wings at sides.

Range and Habitat

Brambling: A Eurasian species, common but irregular as a migrant in the Bering Sea region, including the Aleutians; casual in fall and winter in southern Alaska; accidental south to Canada and northwestern U.S. states. Prefers northern forests with birch trees during breeding season; agricultural fields, woodlands (especially beech), parks, and gardens during winter.

INTERESTING FACTS

Bramblings are well-known for the unpredictability of their migrations; birds wintering in Great Britain have been recovered in Italy the next.
This irregularity may be associated with the dependence of brambling flocks on the seeds of a few trees, especially beech, that tend to be produced plentifully in alternate years in different localities.
Unlike most finches, their young are fed extensively on insects. A group of finches has many collective nouns, including a "charm", "company", and "trembling" of finches.

The Brambling has a large range, estimated globally at 10,000,000 square kilometers. The bird is native to the majority of Asia and Europe though it has been seen in Canada and the United States. It prefers boreal or temperate forest and shrubland habitats as well as arable terrestrial land and pastureland. The global population of the bird is estimated at 25,000,000 to 43,000,000 in Europe alone. The population is not estimated to meet decline trends that would necessitate inclusion on the IUCN Red List. Because of this, the evaluation status of the Brambling is Least Concern.