Flecks of gold glinted in the sun as goldfinches wheeled and danced at Tynwald Park in New Norfolk.
The collective noun for a flock of goldfinches is a “charm” but on this occasion I settled for my own term still carrying an essence of poetry, a “chime”. This was the sound of their collective twitter, the many ringing voices that came together in waves in this park on the western bank of the upper River Derwent.
There must have been possibly 100 birds, feeding on tiny seeds spread beneath a cypress tree.
The small finches – barely 12 cm long – had not been on my radar because at the time I was counting seagulls for Birdlife Tasmania’s annual gull count. The goldfinches, though, became an irresistible distraction.
Chirruping and rising from the ground as one, then reeling, banking and settling again in a shower of gold, the goldfinches brought a splash of warmth to a dour and bleak winter’s day. A riot of colour with lipstick-red faces, white and black heads and bright yellow wing-bars.
The goldfinch, rejoicing in energetic and joyful flight, has been seen as a symbol of good fortune and loaded with allegorical meaning since the Middle Ages, frequently appearing in religious paintings – including The Goldfinch, the 1654 painting by Carel Fabritius that inspired Donna Tartt’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name.
The 14th century author and poet Geoffrey Chaucer, in his Cook’s Ale, described his apprentice protagonist as “lively… as a goldfinch in the glade.” This apparent beauty in golden garb made goldfinches popular as caged birds in the 19th century, when large numbers were taken from the wild to supply this demand, taking them to the brink of extinction in Britain, their natural home.
Happily, the goldfinches bounced back, benefitting from the love people now show them in suburban gardens in both Britain and across Europe.
They were introduced to Australia in the 1800s and have always thrived on the seeds of both introduced pasture and native grasses here.
Growing up in Britain, the goldfinch was one of the species that fired my interest in birds as a schoolboy. But learning about camouflage in nature study class, I questioned how such a gaudy bird could remain hidden until one day I saw goldfinches feeding on a patch Scotch thistles. The birds clung to the yellow stalks swaying in the breeze, their crimson faces buried in the spiky seed-heads. You could not tell them apart.
No such hiding place for the goldfinches at Tynwald Park but they defied a passing white goshawk to take a look, their flashing bodies entwined, 80, 90, 100 birds, making theatre of the air, and making for safety in number.
The goldfinches swept just above my head, as though trying to pull me into the action. Calling me to embrace the joy of their lives.