Goldfinches are a puzzle. Years ago we saw them so rarely that it was an exciting time when they appeared, usually on teasels or thistles. Now they are often seen. Numbers must be up. But they turn up in unusual ways and places. Around the rhododendron on the west side of Blacka is where they turn up in the first week of June. Perhaps the shrubs provide good cover, a convenient place to fly out from towards the food plants they prefer.
Almost the same day they suddenly turned up singing from my TV aerial. Then they came down and around the rhododendron in the garden. This rhododendron incidentally is also currently favoured by scores of bees so doing its best for insect life. There are numerous theories as to whether certain species of rhododendron are poisonous to bees particularly the ponticum variety found at Blacka. Nothing seems proved either way.
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