British Bullfinch - 1949 status

Pyrrhula pyrrhula nesa

Common resident, breeding even in small woods and copses in valleys on exposed coast.  Not recorded Skokholm, but one seen Skomer, 31 March, 1946 and may breed Caldey.

R.M.Lockley, G.C.S.Ingram, H.M.Salmon, 1949, The Birds of Pembrokeshire, The West Wales Field Society

Bullfinch - 2003-07

The Bullfinch is a relatively common resident of large gardens, hedgerows and lightly wooded areas, including young plantations. It is absent from the islands, the Preseli tops and apparently the extremities of the Marloes and St. David’s peninsulas.

This is a large bright finch, in which the male is particularly conspicuous, with bright pink front, greyish blue back and black cap; the female shows a similar pattern but duller, both have a conspicuous white rump in flight. It feeds on new buds in spring, making make this species a pest to some ornamental and commercial growers.  However, it never appears in flocks, usually only in pairs or family groups.

The Bullfinch may make its simple nest in thick scrub 2-3m above the ground. It is seemingly quite secretive, with a low proportion of confirmed breeding recorded. 

It was estimated during the 1984-88 survey there was a breeding density of 10-15 pairs per tetrad, producing a population estimate of 4-5,000 pairs for the county. The breeding distribution maps look broadly the same, but there is a lower (c. 50%) proportion of records of confirmed breeding, and a corresponding increase in probable breeding.  With no known difference in surveying methods, is this a sign that the population is lower and not as easy to find and therefore confirm breeding? Should the BTO’s BBS (1994-2007) decline in the population across the UK of 18% be considered a fair measure for Pembrokeshire? If so then perhaps a lower density per tetrad should be considered giving rise to a population at the lower range of that given for 1984-88, probably nearer the 4,000 pairs for the county.

Richard Dobbins

Fieldwork 2003-07 (based on 490 tetrads) 

Red = breeding confirmed = 72

Orange = breeding probable = 185

Yellow = breeding possible = 63

Total tetrads in which registered = 320 (65.3%)

Bullfinch - 1994

Breeding resident

A common resident according to Mathew (1894) and Lockley et al. (1949), Bullfinches are generally distributed in Pembrokeshire, being absent only from open areas such as mountain tops, exposed headlands and offshore islands, although they have bred at Caldey since at least 1924 (Wintle 1924). Secretive in manner and difficult to census, the majority of records from the Breeding Birds Survey

of 1984-1988 refer to possible and probable breeding and they may have been missed in some areas. An estimate of 10-15 pairs per tetrad suggests a total of 4,000-5,000 breeding pairs.

The Bullfinch is generally regarded as sedentary, but there is at least some degree of mobility, for up to three at a time have reached Skomer on seven occasions. Groups of up to 12 sometimes gather at bird-cherries in the autumn and at least 30 were mixed with Chaffinches in stubble at Sandy Haven in January 1988.

Fieldwork 1984-88 (based on 478 tetrads) 

Red = breeding confirmed = 139

Orange = breeding probable = 73

Yellow = breeding possible = 127

Total tetrads in which registered = 339 (70.9%)

Donovan J.W. & Rees G.H (1994), Birds of Pembrokeshire

Bullfinch - 1970s breeding

Red = breeding confirmed

Orange = breeding probable

Yellow = breeding possible

Bullfinch - 1980s winter atlas

The BTO winter atlas showed that Bullfinches were present in most 10km squares during the winters of 1981-82, 1982-82 and 1983-84.

The darker the colour, the higher the relative total count for each 10km square.  The darkest blue represents over 15 birds recorded in a day. The largest gatherings were due to birds from the surrounding neighbourhood gathering at good local food sources.

Graham Rees

Bullfinch - 1894

Species account from M Mathew, 1894, "The Birds of Pembrokeshire and its islands"

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