European Goldfinch

Carduelis carduelis

Common residents of 300,000 breeding pairs in Britain plus 915,000 birds in Ireland.

Also breeds in mainland Europe

Adults have a red face, black and white head, warm brown upperparts, white underparts with buff flanks and breast patches, and black and yellow wings.

Juveniles have a plain head and a greyer back, but they are unmistakable due to the yellow wing stripe.

The song can be described as a pleasant silvery twittering.

The call is a melodic tickeLIT, and the song is a tinkling medley of trills and twitters, but always including the tri-syllabic call phrase or a teLLIT-teLLIT-teLLIT.