Chloris chloris
A stocky, olive-green finch with a wheezy song.
Size: 15 cm | Habitat: Garden Birds | Season: All year
Chunkier than most finches, the male greenfinch is olive-green overall with bright yellow flashes in the wings and tail. Females and young birds are duller and browner.
Olive-green body · bright yellow wing and tail patches · stout pale bill · forked tail
Greenfinches feed readily at hanging feeders, especially on sunflower seeds, clinging with a strong grip. Their song includes a distinctive nasal, wheezing 'dzweee'.
Greenfinch numbers fell sharply after a disease called trichomonosis spread through feeders — a good reminder to clean feeders and bird baths regularly.
The Greenfinch (Chloris chloris) is a stocky, olive-green finch, with males showing bright yellow flashes in the wings and tail that become especially vivid during display flight, when they flutter slowly over territory on stiff wingbeats while singing a distinctive nasal, wheezing call. Females and juveniles are duller and browner overall.
Greenfinches feed readily at hanging feeders, gripping tightly with strong feet to extract sunflower seeds, and were once one of the most common visitors to British gardens. Their reliance on communal feeding stations, however, made them especially vulnerable when a new threat emerged in the mid-2000s.
Understanding the greenfinch reveals how quickly a familiar, common species can be pushed towards Red-list status when disease spreads efficiently through exactly the same feeders that once made it so easy to watch.
🔴 Conservation status: Red (UK Birds of Conservation Concern 5)
Red-listed. Since 2006, the parasitic disease finch trichomonosis has caused the UK breeding population to fall by more than 60%, spread primarily through shared contamination at dirty bird feeders and water sources. Regularly cleaning and disinfecting feeders, and spacing them out to reduce crowding, is one of the most effective things a garden owner can do to help.