GOLDFINCHES are back on the thistles. Farmers do not like thistles, because they are so hard to get rid of, but goldfinches have no cause to complain. A bed of thistles covered with fluffy seedheads is like a table spread for them.

They come in flocks to these prickly beds, swaying on top of the plants, and bending their heads forward in a reverential-looking way as they extract the seeds. They have unusually long, fine beaks for a finch, and this enables them to probe deep and tease the seeds out.

The feathers of the red front part of their face are also rather stiff, and give them some protection against the spines. Siskins are the only other birds with beaks so shaped that they can reach the seeds when they are still in the thistle head. Linnets have to wait until the seeds have come loose and are about to blow away as thistledown.

In a large flock of goldfinches there are always some flitting about, and it looks as if they are having a dance on top of the thistles. They accompany it with a constant, tinkling twitter. The adults’ heads are striped red, white, and black, and sometimes they were called “redcaps”. The 18th- century poet John Clare used that name as the title of a poem of his about the goldfinch. Just now, there are also plenty of young ones with greyish heads on the thistles; they are called “grey-pates”.

When the flock goes up, the air is full of flashing gold, since young and old both have a long gold wing-bar running from the side of the body almost to the wing-tip. It can be seen particularly clearly when they fly overhead on a sunny day. There is a legend that a girl will marry a millionaire if one flies above her.

Goldfinches are quite common everywhere in Britain except in the mountains — and we are lucky that this is so, since trapping them to sing in cages had practically brought the wild birds to extinction 100 years ago. They were one of the first species that the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds took in hand.

Some migrate south in the autumn, but in recent years I have seen plenty around throughout the winter. They do not come much to seed-feeders — but they will make the most of the seeds in a herbaceous border if it is left uncut.

WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR

Birders Reed warblers giving voice from dense beds of rushes.

Twitchers sooty tern, Cockle Island, Groomsport, Co Down; Wilson’s petrel, Labost, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides; Pacific golden plover, Tacumshin, Co Wexford; melodious warbler, Portland Bill, Dorset; white-billed diver, Graemeshall, Orkney; cattle egret, Sandwich Bay, Kent.

Details from Birdline, 0906 8700222 (60p a min) www.birdingworld.co.uk; www.rspb.org.uk