When does the chaffinch breed, what does its song sound like and how can you support it in your own garden? We answer these and other questions in our large chaffinch profile.
The chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs) is one of the most widespread breeding birds of all. It is also a frequent guest in our home gardens - and a real eye-catcher with its loud, penetrating song and colorful plumage. The colorful finch owes its name to its favorite food: the beechnuts, which it prefers to use as food in winter. However, it is mainly the males who fight the hard fight for food in the cold months. The female chaffinches mostly settle south to warmer areas. Carl von Linné, the legendary Swedish naturalist and founder of modern taxonomy, already observed this behavior and therefore gave the chaffinch the Latin species name "coelebs", which means "unmarried" or "celibate". " means. Additional interesting facts about the lively garden visitor as well as other vivid pictures can be found here in our large chaffinch profile.
Chaffinch: Profile
| Size | About 14 - 15 cm |
| Weight | About 25g |
| Incubation | May - June |
| Lifetime | About 5 years |
| Habitat | Forests, parks and gardens |
| Food Preference | Insects in summer, seeds in winter |
| Threats | Insect die-off, loss of natural habitat |
How to recognize the chaffinch
The most important feature of all finches is the strong, triangular finch beak, which is excellent for breaking open all kinds of seeds. The chaffinch is also characterized by a gray head and red-brown breast and belly plumage in males. Another important feature for both sexes is the high-contrast white bands on the dark wings, which enable the chaffinch to be recognized even from a great distance and in flightcan.
What does the chaffinch song sound like?
The chaffinch's song can only be heard during the breeding season, but then it's hard to miss. It begins with a short series of accelerating whistles and then escalates into a descending smash, also known as a "finch beat".
The chaffinch song sounds like this:
In addition to singing, the chaffinch also has a number of calls which, like a dialect, can vary slightly from region to region. The most well-known call of the chaffinch is the so-called rain call, which sounds like a sharp "Rruht" before or even during a rainfall and is therefore used in some places as a kind of weather report.
How do you recognize young chaffinches?
Young chaffinches are not colored as intensively as the adult birds. They have grey-green to grey-brown plumage and are therefore similar to the more inconspicuous female chaffinch. The only features that distinguish the young birds as chaffinches are the white wing bars and the typical finch beak.
How do you recognize chaffinch eggs?
The clutch of the chaffinch consists of 4 to 5 eggs, which are about 19 x 15 millimeters in size, have a bluish base color and are covered with brownish to purple spots. The eggs are nested in a hemispherical nest of grass, moss, roots and tiny twigs, lined with feathers and camouflaged on the outside with lichen and cobwebs.
How can you tell the difference between male and female chaffinches?
The male chaffinches are very colorful and easy to recognize by the reddish-brown feathers on the chest, abdomen and cheeks. Also typical is the blue-grey parting and the neck of the same color, from which a narrow collar extends up to the level of the eyes. The females are clearly paler in colour. They have a rather grey-green basic coloring and therefore look quite similar to the female house sparrows. However, the female chaffinches are still characterized by the wide, white wing bars, which distinguish them from the simpler sparrows.
What is the favorite habitat of the chaffinch?
The chaffinch is very adaptable and versatile when it comes to its habitat. It prefers to live in forests, hedges and thickets. But he also feels at home in parks and gardens with large trees. It therefore does not shy away from being close to people and can often be seen at feeding stations in winter. He only avoids open landscapes.
Where can you find chaffinch nests?
Chaffinches breed in dense hedges or trees. They usually build their nest in a branch fork - several meters above the ground. The female is responsible for building the nest itself, while the male guards her very closely and defends her from other male candidates. In rare cases, chaffinches can have another brood after the first brood. In this case, you start all over again - at a new breeding site and with a new nest.
When is the chaffinch breeding season?
The breeding season of chaffinches lasts from May to June, with the exact start depending on the temperatures in spring: If the spring months are particularly warm, the finches start breeding earlier. The female incubates the eggs for 10 to 16 days. After that, the young birds hatch as nest stools. This means that they are born blind and almost naked and are therefore completely helpless. They must guard the nest for another two weeks while they are fed by the mother. And even after the young have left the nest, both parents will continue to help them forage until they are able to stand on their own two feet.
What does the chaffinch do in winter?
Chaffinches are partial migrants. In Germany, mostly only the male specimens spend the winter in their breeding areas. These are then often on the move in small or large groups and can be observed in droves when looking for food. The females, on the other hand, usually migrate south and only return in the spring for the breeding season.
How to support chaffinches
If you want to settle the chaffinch in your own garden or simply want to support them in their daily struggle for resources, you will find a few tips and tricks here that are very easy to implement.
What does the chaffinch feed on?
In the summer, chaffinches feed mainly on all kinds of insects. They also like to use them to raise their youngprotein-rich caterpillars. In winter, on the other hand, they are vegetarian and use a wide variety of seeds, which they break up with their powerful beak.
If you want to offer the finches additional food in winter, you should use grain mixtures such as sunflower seeds, broken peanuts or poppy seeds. Our Plantura loose feed, for example, contains a whole range of rich seeds that provide a lot of energy during the cold winter months and, in addition to the chaffinch, also support many other garden birds, such as the bullfinch and the robin.
Which nesting aids are suitable for chaffinches?
Since chaffinches are free breeders and build their nests openly in trees or bushes, a nesting box is not necessarily helpful. Such structures are more suitable for cave breeders such as tits or starlings. Instead, one should encourage natural nesting sites, for example by not thinning out hedges too much, in order to offer the birds a sheltered shelter.
How can you support them?
In addition to winter feeding, you can also provide sufficient food for chaffinches in summer. Since they only eat insects during this time, it is important to encourage them. Therefore, if possible, the use of chemical sprays should be avoided, as these minimize the incidence of insects. On the other hand, if you want to bring additional life into your garden, you can do this with the help of our Plantura beneficial insect magnet. With this seed mixture you not only create a flower meadow, but also a paradise for a large number of small garden visitors and thus a feast for chaffinches.
Another way of supporting chaffinches, especially in raising their young, is to encourage caterpillars with popular food plants such as blackberry, willow, stinging nettle or sloe.
If you are curious and want to discover more of the variety of garden birds, take a look at our other bird portraits and get to know the goldfinch or the wren, for example.