Everyone has heard of linnets, but they are not such familiar birds as that would suggest. They were once well known as singing cage-birds — but no longer. In the music-hall song My old man said ‘Follow the van’, the singer says that she followed on “with mi’old cock linnet”, but she would not be doing that now. Linnets, like all the other small song-birds, are protected species, and it is illegal to trap them.
In fact, few birds are less suited to cages than linnets. They are great flyers, bounding and bouncing through the sky at high speed, and making delightful twanging notes as they go.
The cock linnet in spring is also a very pretty bird. He has a rich-toned chestnut back, a red splash on his forehead, and a crimson patch on either side of his chest. He and his mate, who is a streaky brown bird, both have quite long tails, and sit very upright. The male has a tinkling song, interspersed with the same twanging notes you hear when he is flying. It can meander on with a cheerful, easygoing air for several minutes.
Just now the linnets are forming pairs, but they do this in a quite different way from their relatives, the chaffinches, which are also pairing up at present. The male chaffinch sets up a large territory and sings, and waits for a desirable female to join him. After that, the pair spends the summer isolated in the territory.
Linnets, on the other hand, are still going round in flocks, and will pair up before they settle into territories. The males start chasing each other off, and courting the females by trying to nibble at their beaks. Eventually, attachments form, and the couples begin to spend more time on their own.
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It is the female who decides where they shall nest, and the male will then establish a small territory around the gorse or bramble bush she has chosen. He will sing to protect his mate from interference. However, the other linnet pairs from the flock may well choose nest-sites in bushes quite near by — and the flock will not really break up, because they will all go off in search of food together.
This makes sense for one main reason. Linnets are seed-eaters, while in summer chaffinches are insect-eaters. The chaffinches will find all the food they need in their territories — but the linnets may have to range far and wide to gather the dandelion and fat-hen and grass seeds that they need. And they will find those more easily if they all search together.
I particularly like seeing a linnet pair when the nest is being built, as will happen in early April. They stay with each other and when they come back to their bush, the female dives in with her feather or wisp of straw. Meanwhile the male settles on a spray of gorse or the top of a small tree, and sings. He always seems to me a figure of perfect contentment as he sits there. Then the female comes out, and off they bounce merrily through the sky again.
WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR
Birders Watch your local rookery as the birds start building nests and displaying.
Twitchers Little bunting, Caunsall, Worcs; gyr falcon, Great Bernera, Outer Hebrides; boreal eider, Rossknowlagh, Co Donegal.
Details from Birdline, 0906 8700222 (60p a min) www.birdingworld.co.uk; www.rspb.org.uk
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derwent.may@thetimes.co.uk