Listen to the trumpeting of the large race bullfinch in the Nimtofte area below.
In Djursland, an area of eastern Jutland in Denmark, we have a resident “small” Bullfinch population supposedly of the race coccinea. These birds breed and are resident all year, being present in winter as well.
Intermittently, the area is also subject to invasions of the so-called “Northern” bullfinches, which are 25-33% larger (on wing measurements and body weight respectively). These larger birds generally have occurred in very few years since 1998 and were typically confined to spring and autumn, as if on irruptive passage. However, as elsewhere in western Europe, Djursland experienced a large influx of Northern Bullfinches in autumn 2004, consisting of both normal calling birds and birds making the wheezy “trumpeting” call widely reported in the ornithological press and web discussion groups. Not only were the Northern form more numerous that year, but many remained through the winter, with swollen numbers again in spring 2005. Recaptures and field observations of colour-marked birds confirmed that Northern individuals were consistent in giving either the normal call or the wheezy trumpeting, neither form was ever heard to make the other contact call. Since most Danish (and other Scandinavian) birders were convinced that they had never heard the trumpeting call before, this suggests that they may be different entities, potentially originating from different breeding areas.
Professor Ian Newton, an acknowledged world expert on Bullfinches certainly considered that the large invasion in autumn 2004 suggested a major food crop failure (potentially rowan berries) that brought large numbers of Bullfinches to Europe from further east than normal. Could the “trumpeting” Northern Bullfinches therefore originate from breeding areas further east of the nesting areas of the normal calling Northern Bullfinches which are common throughout much of Scandinavia? Support for this suggestion comes from the fact that Northern Bullfinches breeding in Finland make calls very similar to those made by small Danish and British birds (listen to the first section giving contact calls at:http://www.virtual-bird.com/songs/pyrrhula-pyrrhula.mp3). However, at least some of the Northern Bullfinches recorded in the Komi Republic of Russia, much further east give contact calls that resemble the “trumpeting” Northern Bullfinches that occurred in western Europe in winter 2004/5 (listen to the contact calls of birds at http://www.britishbirds.co.uk/sounds.htm). Could this help find the breeding areas of the trumpeting Northern Bullfinches?