Bullfinch bookends and Tunnicliffe’s Brooke Bond Bird Portraits

Bullfinches are exceptionally beautiful. They are also elusive. It’s a pleasure when I see a pair at Yarner Woods on Dartmoor:

I’ve just been looking at an illustration of Bullfinches. It’s sixty years since Charles Tunnicliffe’s Bird Portraits was published. The concept of getting a free card with a picture on it in your packet of loose-leaf tea, and buying an album to collect them and stick them in, may seem quite strange now. Here’s the book, originally from from 1957:

Tunnicliffe's Bird Portraits - The Hall of Einar

Charles Tunnicliffe’s illustration captures them perfectly: they have such a strong beak, a distinctive black head and colour coordinated feet. The detail in their plumage is wonderful.

Brooke Bond - Bullfinch - The Hall of Einar - Tunnicliffe

As ever, he got the stance just right:

Bullfinch - The Hall of Einar - photograph (c) David Bailey (not the)

The female is more camouflaged while the male is certainly not:

They are a perfect pair of bookends.

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