Brambling Fringilla montifringilla

Bramblings: these shy winter visitors are in their winter plumage and about to start their long flight back from the UK to their breeding grounds in northern Scandinavia and Russia.

Shown here is a male. Bramblings are gregarious birds, often to be found "hiding" among flocks of chaffinches.

The heads of some of the males have begun to turn to black breeding plumage.

The northwest London branch of the RSPB said this was only the second recorded sighting of Bramblings in the Borough of Barnet in the winter of 2006. (Apologies for the poor quality of the photos, - light was poor and I couldn't get near enough.)