Family FRINGILLIDAE Leach, 1820

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• Fringillidae Leach, 1820.

Introduction

These typical finches are cosmopolitan in their distribution but occur in Australia and its territories through introductions. Some 168 species are recognised in 42 genera (Dickinson 2003). Of these, four species in two genera have Australian populations through established introductions in New South Wales, South Australia, Queensland, Tasmania, Victoria and Western Australia. Only two species are relatively well established: the European Greenfinch Carduelis chloris and the European Goldfinch C. carduelis. The remaining two are known from straying birds reaching Australia from established New Zealand populations. The Common Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs, has been recorded from Lord Howe Island, and the Common Redpoll, Carduelis flammea, formerly existed on Macquarie Island as well as being recorded as a stray on Lord Howe Island (McAllan et al. 2004).

Fringillids have terrestrial habits, occupying areas of alpine meadow, broadleaf thicket and shrubland, casuarina and cypress woodland, human habitation, lignum, low sclerophyll heath, mallee, temperate eucalypt woodlands and tussock grassland. Much of their feeding is done through gleaning actions utilising infestations of introduced weeds to obtain their seed diet. Generally the species are considered to be gregarious in nature, but the occasional single bird or pairs are noted. Local movements usually follow seeding plants and aggregations of birds often assemble at food sources.

The nest is a simple cup of grasses, lined with finer grasses and feathers. These nests are placed in the fork of a shrub or small tree. Upwards of five pale greenish blue eggs are laid; occasionally these may be dotted overall with pale brown. Parasitism by the Pallid Cuckoo, Cuculus pallidus, has been recorded.

Diagnosis

'The fringillids themselves, small birds with hard, conical "finch" bills, are ground feeding seed-eaters that have specially-adapted smooth to dentate in-curled edges to the bill for shelling seeds. Worked in tandem with the tongue and its modified muscles, the bill shell shells seeds by wedging them into grooves between ridges in an extensively ossified palate, bracing and turning them with a blood-stiffened tongue, and cutting or crushing up with the lower mandible to squeeze out the contents (Ziswiler 1964, 1965, 1979' (Schodde & Mason 1999).

Diagnosis References

Schodde, R. & Mason, I.J. 1999. The Directory of Australian Birds : Passerines. A Taxonomic and Zoogeographic Atlas of the Biodiversity of Birds in Australia and its Territories. Collingwood, Australia : CSIRO Publishing x 851 pp.

Ziswiler, V. 1964. Neue Aspekte zur Systematic körnerfressender Singvögel. Verhandlungen der Schweizerischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft 144: 133-134

Ziswiler, V. 1965. Zur Kenntnis des Samenöffnens und der Struktur des hörnernen Gaumens bei körnerfressenden Oscines. Journal für Ornithologie 106: 1-48

Ziswiler, V. 1979. Zungenfunktionen und Zungenversteifung bei granivoren Singvögeln. Revue Suisse de Zoologie 86: 823-831

General References

Dickinson, E.C. (ed.) 2003. The Howard & Moore Complete Checklist of the Birds of the World. London : Christopher Helm 1039 pp.

McAllan I.A.W., Curtis, B.R., Hutton, I. & Cooper, R.M. 2004. The birds of the Lord Howe Island Group: a review of records. Australian Field Ornithology. Vol. 2 Supplement.

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