Goldfinch

dion

I think I saw a goldfinch in the park yesterday. Has anyone else seen any or am I mistaken?

miss annie

We see them often in our garden. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a charm or two in the Park.

Idoru

Was it a small yellow and black bird with a red face? 

dion

I have a terrible visual memory. It probably did. Like a blue tit but with wrong colours. Not as fat though

Luirette

Loads of goldfinches in our garden too, but they're pretty common. I saw a whole load of green parakeets in Finsbury Park recently. Used to see them all the time in West London but didn't know they had spread so far east.

dion

Are they more common than they used to be? I never think I ever saw one in London before?

Idoru

Yeah, the Ring-necked Parakeets are everywhere these days. We've got them in Walthamstow and I saw more than 10 together in Abney Park in Stokey.

Luirette

@dion - goldfinches seem to be very particular about what trees they hang out in so if you don't have the right kind of tree in your garden you may never see them. They scoff the seeds on the one behind our flat. I love their funny little red faces.

dion

Silver birch?

Luirette

Apparently they do like birch and alder, but it's the seeds on an ash tree they seem to like scoffing thing behind our place. If you want them to visit your garden you need to put out Niger seeds for them in a feeder.

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Idoru

<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It's highly unlikely that a Nightingale ever sang in Berkeley Square. I'd put it down to artistic licence.</span></div>

ADGS

There were definitely no bluebirds in Dover. Ornithological dishonesty was rampant in popular song back then.

vetski

And the cliffs are disappointingly grey close up...

Mirandola

Dunno about nightingales, but there was a ghost. Ok, a ghost story.

Idoru

Is that the one about two chaps who stayed overnight in a haunted house to prove it wasn't really haunted and both came out completely mad?

Mirandola

First prize goes to Idoru.

miss annie

There's a lovely old film about a couple of of ghosts in Berkeley Square too, it was on tv over Christmas.

dion

So I was up running on the north side of the park early the other morning, just round from the cottaging side, running up the sledging hill (the hill that whispers in my ear that I am a weedy weak willed loser), and was surprised at the birdsong!  tonnes of birds having a right old singsong<div><br></div><div>and i saw a long tailed tit near Tessies on SGR the other day, excellent</div><div><br></div><div>and there is a cormorant on the pond in fp</div>

miss annie

If you saw one long tail there would have been lots more there too, they travel in big groups. Not sure of the collective noun, but we get lots of them in the garden, they are jolly little puffballs. I recommend a book called 'Our Garden Birds' by Matt Sewell for the best description of them.

miss annie

Moray Rd has been visited by a heron this week. Not so extraordinary I suppose as we are quite near the Park, but joyous none the less.

andy

We get a heron in the garden every now and again. It's so huge - it looks like a pterodactyl has landed.

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miss annie

Yes, herons are quite a lot bigger than you imagine up close.

ADGS

Also very still, such that they can be mistaken for plastic herons put to scare real ones away until you get pretty close.