Feathered butterfly: the gentle greenfinch

THE long-drawn-out nasal wheeze of the green linnet, green grosbeak, greeney or greenie is usually uttered during the breeding season. It has become as familiar a sound in gardens as well as the countryside. Of all the British finches, this is the least concerned by humans. In the early part of the previous century, it was mainly a bird of rural areas although it favoured areas close to farms.

Prior to the combine harvester, it congregated with other finches in farmyards to consume the piles of threshings from grain and would forage for weed seeds in field margins. In autumn and winter, it would converge on the remains of brassicas and other field stubble, which helped finch populations to survive through winter. In the 1800s, when the fashion for caged singing birds was at its height, “greenfinches”, along with