Local celebrity

[ironphoenix]

We have a European Goldfinch visiting our balcony birdfeeders. The default assumption is that he's an escape from domestic captivity, because its natural range isn't exactly close to here, but it's acting wild, hanging out with a mixed flock of Common (American) Goldfinches, Redpolls, and House Finches, and it arrived with an Arctic air mass. We're hoping that experts can establish its subspecies from pictures, because if it's from a Northern one (rather than, say, the subspecies particular to Sicily, Corsica, and Sardinia), it might be judged a genuine wild bird way out of its range.

If so, the trickle of interest we've had for visiting our viewing area may get rather more substantial!

Comments

[jackspryte.livejournal.com]

Ew! How fun! A mystery! I'd love to see a picture if you get around to it.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

They aren't artistic by any means, but here are pictures of the front and back parts. (He's the guy with the red and black face and very bright yellow wing bar on the middle level, on the right in the first photo and on the left in the second (as the feeder swings in the wind a bit). soul_diaspora's camera is out of commission, so I took these with a landscape lens through the patio door for identification confirmation.