Dompap

Danish word of the day: dompap = bullfinch

Utterslev Mose is not really far from home, but sometimes, it’s cool to see birds from your living room. After coming back from holiday, I finally set up a bird feeder in the backyard of my dormitory. I put it on a table in front of the kitchen, so that we can see it when we eat. I hoped to spark some interest in the neighbours I share the kitchen with; so far, I’d say some have enjoyed the show already, and that pleases me.

It took some weeks for the birds to find the feeder. The first to came were the Great (Parus major) and Blue tits (Cyanystes caeruleus). These swift birds land, pick a seed, and fly away to eat it in the bushes. There, they hold it in their claws, and open the hull by hammering it with their tiny, thin bill.

Later came the Wood pigeons (Columba palumbus). These ones are less subtle: they just stand on the table and eat.

The last visitor is a true gem, this kind of bird that you see in the books but never in real life, until the day it reveals itself, as beautiful as you imagined it.
The Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) is one of those, for me. I’m pretty sure I saw one, one day, a long time ago; I had never seen it properly though, until the day I spotted them in the wood behind the dormitory, here in Copenhagen. After seeing them a couple of times, I secretly hoped they would visit the feeder. Spoiler alert: they did. They still do 😀

Both sexes share a black cap, a grey back and a white rump, but while the female’s breast and belly are beige-greyish, the male is completely pinky-red under!

I can’t find the words to describe what I feel when I see these beauties. The way they eat makes me laugh: once they grab a seed in their beak, they start chewing, crushing hull and kernel (the inside of the seed, the tasty part) alike. Many chunks fall to the ground, and often, you can spot them roaming on the floor, picking remnants they dropped themselves.

Like Greenfinches (Chloris chloris) at home, they are the masters of the feeder. They bully the poor tits, chasing them away whenever they can, although the latter still manage to pick some food there and then.

Bullfinches shining in the sunlight… how can life be any better?

> Wildlife gallery

Bonus: ever heard the word “blurd”? It’s the not-completely-unexpected combination of blurred and bird which I discovered in the hilarious “The worst bird photographs ever” Facebook group. Here is my latest mix of flying blurds, wingless blurds and levitating blurds, enjoy =D