200 Goldfinches Feed in Burned Hair-Grass at Priestcliffe — SkimNews
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- A flock of about 200 goldfinches, most of them this year's juveniles, worked through stands of tufted hair-grass at Priestcliffe, feeding on thistle and knapweed seed beneath the swaying canopy in autumn westerlies.
- The juvenile goldfinches lacked the adults' red-and-black head bands and mocha underparts, instead showing dull, streaky plumage offset by bright semi-circular yellow bars across black wings and white-tipped flight feathers.
- Tufted hair-grass at the site stood over a metre tall, burned beige by summer heat and churned by strong autumn westerlies as the birds moved through the vegetation's swaying 'lather.'
- The name 'tailorbird' for the goldfinch traces, in Cocker's reading, to the species' use of thistle floss, spiders' silk, and wool as nest material rather than to white eye-holes in their wing-tips.
- The flock's collective movement through frothing grass stems produced 'exquisite countervailing patterns,' with double bands of brightness flashing in intermittent sunlight and calls likened by Cocker to stardust from a distant galaxy fused into 'life.'
Why it matters: The observation documents roughly 200 juvenile goldfinches feeding on thistle and knapweed seed in autumn-burned hair-grass at Priestcliffe, with Cocker linking the species' old name 'tailorbird' to its actual use of thistle floss, spiders' silk, and wool as nesting material — grounding the etymology in observed ecological behaviour.
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