Common Chaffinch

Fringilla coelebs

14 – 16 cm

25 – 28 cm

minor concern

fruit trees, on the ground, or in copses

insects, fruits, seeds, sprouts

very common

In winter many pines in northern Europe arrive, where food begins to become scarce. Sometimes, if the winds or adverse weather prevents them from migrating across the Alps or the Pyrenees, they have been seen doing these “migrations” walking!!!

The etymology of the name is very curious, “coelebs” comes from the Latin coelibatus, the current Catalan translation would be “celibe”, which means “single”. This is because Linneu, the scientist who described the species, observed that the great strokes that come in autumn and winter, from the north, were exclusively from a certain sex.