Bullfinch

I was walking into town this morning after calling at a friend's house, and my route took in a section of canal towpath where the canal crosses a brook.  This is often a good place to glimpse grey wagtails (an unfortunate name, I always feel, for what is a very colourful little bird).  No wagtails in view today, but a pair of bullfinches, of which the male especially has to be one of the most brightly colourful birds we see in our gardens and parks.  Indeed, someone not so long ago who saw one in her garden insisted to me that "it must have been something escaped from an aviary, it was too bright to be a British bird."  The quite dramatic rose pink of the male bullfinch, coupled with his black crown and tail, white wing-bar and the white rump which is what I immediately had spotted as the pair flew for cover across my line of sight - this is an unmistakable combination.  The back of both male and female birds is grey - but even this is quite a rich and splendid grey; the bright rose pink of the male is replaced in the female by salmon pink, less striking, but still quite attractive. I think bullfinches are fewer in number than they used to be, but I seem to have seen quite a few this year, so they're certainly still in business round here!