Common linnet

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For the North American bird, see House finch.

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"linnet" redirects here. For other species of linnet, see linnet (disambiguation).
Common linnet
Carduelis cannabina -England -male-8.jpg
Male in breeding plumage in England
File:Female-linnet.jpg
Female in Scotland
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Animalia
Phylum:
Chordata
Class:
Aves
Order:
Passeriformes
Family:
Fringillidae
Subfamily:
Carduelinae
Genus:
Linaria

Bechstein, 1802
Species:
L. cannabina
Binomial name
Linaria cannabina
Synonyms

Carduelis cannabina

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File:Verbreitungskarte Bluthänfling.jpg

The common linnet (Linaria cannabina) is a small passerine bird of the finch family, Fringillidae. It derives its scientific name from its fondness for hemp and its English name from its liking for seeds of flax, from which linen is made.

Taxonomy

In 1758 Linnaeus included the common linnet in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name, Acanthis cannabina.[2][3] Acanthis is the classical Latin word for a small unidentified bird mentioned by Aristotle. Acanthis was a woman in Greek mythology who was transformed into a bird. The species name cannabina comes from the Latin for hemp.[4] The common linnet was formerly placed in the genus Carduelis but was moved to the genus Linaria based on a phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA sequences.[5][6]

There are seven recognised subspecies:[5]

  • L. c. autochthona (Clancey, 1946) – Scotland
  • L. c. cannabina (Linnaeus, 1758) – western, central and northern Europe, western and central Siberia. Non-breeding in north Africa and southwest Asia
  • L. c. bella (Brehm, CL, 1845) – Middle East to Mongolia and northwestern China
  • L. c. mediterranea (Tschusi, 1903) – Iberian Peninsula, Italy, Greece, northwest Africa and Mediterranean islands
  • L. c. guentheri (Wolters, 1953) – Madeira
  • L. c. meadewaldoi (Hartert, 1901) – western and central Canary Island (El Hierro and Gran Canaria)
  • L. c. harterti (Bannerman, 1913) – eastern Canary Islands (Alegranza, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura)

Description

The common linnet is a slim bird with a long tail. The upper parts are brown, the throat is sullied white and the bill is grey. The summer male has a grey nape, red head-patch and red breast. Females and young birds lack the red and have white underparts, the breast streaked buff.

Distribution

The common linnet breeds in Europe, western Asia and north Africa. It is partially resident, but many eastern and northern birds migrate farther south in the breeding range or move to the coasts. They are sometimes found several hundred miles off-shore.[7]

Behaviour

File:Carduelis cannabina cannabina MHNT 223 St Moré.jpg
Eggs

Open land with thick bushes is favoured for breeding, including heathland and garden. It builds its nest in a bush, laying 4-7 eggs.

This species can form large flocks outside the breeding season, sometimes mixed with other finches, such as twite, on coasts and salt marshes.

The common linnet's pleasant song contains fast trills and twitters.

It feeds on the ground, and low down in bushes, its food mainly consisting of seeds, which it also feeds to its chicks. It likes small to medium-sized seeds from most arable weeds, knotgrass, dock), crucifers (including charlock, shepherd's purse), chickweeds, dandelions, thistle, sow-thistle, mayweed, common groundsel, common hawthorn and birch. They have a small component of Invertebrates in their diet.

Conservation

The common linnet is listed by the UK Biodiversity Action Plan as a priority species. It is protected in the UK by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

In Britain, populations are declining, attributed to increasing use of herbicides, aggressive scrub removal and excessive hedge trimming; its population fell by 56% between 1968 and 1991, probably due to a decrease in seed supply and the increasing use of herbicide. From 1980-2009, according to the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme, the European population decreased by 62%[8]

Favourable management practices on agricultural land include:

Cultural references

The bird was a popular pet in the late Victorian and Edwardian eras. Tennyson mentions "the linnet born within the cage" in part 27 of the poem In Memoriam A.H.H, the same section that contains the famous lines "'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all." A "cock linnet" features in the classic British music hall song of that period My Old Man, and as a character in Oscar Wilde's children's story The Devoted Friend. Wilde also mentions how the call of the linnet awakens The Selfish Giant to the one tree where it is springtime in his garden. William Butler Yeats evokes the image of the common linnet in The Lake Isle of Innisfree (1890) in line 8: "And evening full of the linnet's wings." In the novel The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens, the heroine Nell keeps "only a poor linnet" in a cage, which she leaves for Kit as a sign of her gratefulness to him.

"The Linnets" has become the nickname of King's Lynn Football Club, Burscough Football Club and Runcorn Linnets Football Club (formerly known as 'Runcorn F.C.' and Runcorn F.C. Halton). Barry Town F.C., the South Wales-based football team, also used to be nicknamed 'The Linnets'.

William Blake invokes "the linnet's song" in one of the poems entitled "Song" in his "Poetical Sketches."

The Eurovision Song Contest 2014 entry for the Netherlands The Common Linnets is a direct reference to the bird.

William Wordsworth argued that the song of the common linnet provides more wisdom than books in the third verse of The Tables Turned:

"Books! 'tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There's more of wisdom in it."

But the fellow English poet Robert Bridges used the common linnet instead to express the limitations of poetry - concentrating on the difficulty in poetry of conveying the beauty of a bird's song. He wrote in the first verse:

"I heard a linnet courting
His lady in the spring:
His mates were idly sporting,
Nor stayed to hear him sing
His song of love.--
I fear my speech distorting
His tender love."

The musical Sweeney Todd features the song "Green Finch and Linnet Bird," in which a young lady confined to her room wonders why caged birds sing:

"Green finch and linnet bird,
Nightingale, blackbird,
How is it you sing?
How can you jubilate,
Sitting in cages,
Never taking wing?"

Gallery

  • Carduelis cannabina-young in nest.jpg

    Young in nest

  • Konopleanka 2009 moldavia.jpg
  • Linnet from the Crossley ID Guide Britain and Ireland.jpg

    ID composite

References

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  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/1/3/3/11330/11330-h/11330-h.htm
  8. ↑ http://www.birdlife.org/community/2011/08/farmland-birds-in-europe-fall-to-lowest-levels/

External links

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