Bullfinches eating Guelder rose berries

A group of Bullfinches were feeding just outside Dalby Forest visitor centre this afternoon. We watched them from a window, just over them, and they seemed quite unaware of us, providing a great opportunity to watch this usually shy bird in action.
 Bullfinches are seed predators of many fruit trees. Blackbirds, Thrushes and Woodpigeons are seed dispersers, they eat the berry whole, digest the pulp and the seeds drop to the ground, undigested and prepared to germinate. This is the reason trees and bush species evolved fruits, as the way to disperse their seeds. In contrast, seed predators discard the flesh and eat the seeds inside each fruit. Many finches, like Hawfinches, Greenfinches and Goldfinches, are seed predators too.
Bullfinches favourite seeds include Honeysuckle, Rowan, Elder, Whitebeam and Blackberries, each ripening at different times of the year. Today, they were feeding on the bright red berries of the Guelder Rose, a late fruiting small tree. In their fantastic book "Birds and Berries", Barbara and David Snow document how bullfinches are one of the main seed predators of Guelder Rose.
 The bullfinches stretched to reach the berries (top shot) and used two techniques to get at the seed. They either opened up the fruit and picked the seed, leaving the flesh hanging from the bush or picked the berry and deftly extracted the seed. They will even hovering in front of the bunches of fruits to reach the most difficult ones.

A male picks a berry.

Female extracting a seed...

...and dropping the flesh.

There were not only bullfinches at the tree, a lone Robin, a seed disperser, was feeding on the berries, so even though there was a lot of seed predation going on, it's likely the Guelder Roses will manage to get some of their seed seeds to germinate.

More information
Snow, B. and D Snow 1988. Birds and Berries. T & AD Poyser. 268 pp.

A pair of bullfinches

Bullfinches are generally shy and unobtrusive, they tend to stay hidden in vegetation and show little. It helps to recognise their sad contact note. I see them around regularly enough, but good views are rare. That's why I got quite excited that a pair of Bullfinches, Pyrrhula pyrrhula, recently started to frequent the local wildlife garden, giving me an opportunity to become more familiar with their behaviour. I first noticed a female, funnily enough at the Big Garden Birdwatch. I heard a specially mournful version of their call, possibly she had lost track of her mate.

The hard to photograph female amongst the bushes

The next day, both were around, skulking in the trees and hedges, occasionally coming to the ground to feed. They stayed close to each other, but still called regularly. They appeared to be feeding on buds and Guelder Rose berries.

The male feeding on Guelder Rose seeds

Yesterday, the pair was about, feeding together on Sycamore seeds, the last remaining ones on a tree, and had to stretch and balance precariously on the branches to get at them. Despite their stockiness, they are quite nimble. They peeled the seeds using only their parrot-like bills, unlike goldfinches that have to hold the seed with their feet.

 Bullfinches will feed on buds in spring. In autumn they feed on tree seeds, like Ash keys, Birch and Sycamore. Bullfinches are seed predators of berry producing trees: they discard the flesh of the berry and feed on the seed itself.