It’s thistledown season in the Yorkshire countryside. As summer gives way to autumn, the fields are filled with spiky green plants topped with what looks from a distance like cotton wool. It’s actually a mass of soft white threads that are joined to thistle seeds, making it easier for them to be carried on the wind and take root elsewhere.
Walk closer, and you suddenly get the feeling that whole chunks of this fluffy topping are rising into the air. Then you hear the tell-tale twittering, and you realise you’ve disturbed a flock of goldfinches (or a charm of goldfinches, to give them their traditional – and rather charming – collective noun).
Considering they’re some of our most gaudily coloured songbirds, goldfinches can be surprisingly hard to spot on thistledown. Their creamy/buff underparts blend in pretty well – although their bright red faces and yellow wing-patches are dead giveaways as you get nearer.
Thistles are goldfinches’ favourite plants. They love eating the seeds, and their long, fine beaks are perfect for winkling these nutritious morsels out. The Anglo-Saxons called the goldfinch thisteltuige, or thistle-tweaker, and its scientific name – carduelis carduelis – is derived from the Latin word for thistle.
While goldfinches may be the kings and queens of the thistle, they’re not the only members of the finch family you’re likely to spot on them. Linnets – much rarer in my part of Yorkshire – also enjoy feasting on the seeds.
And if your thistles aren’t adorned with brightly coloured birds, there’s a fair chance that their rich supply of nectar will be providing a meal for brightly coloured butterflies instead. Purple flowers on spiky stems are a recurring theme in many of my butterfly photos from this spring and summer – including meadow browns, ringlets, small tortoiseshells and wall butterflies.
It seems to have been a good year for small copper butterflies in my neck of the woods (and fields). And what do these little gems thrive on? You’ve guessed it – thistles.
But thistles are weeds, aren’t they…just like those other magnets for wildlife, dandelions? Frankly, who cares? Maybe it’s time we paid more attention to the goldfinches and butterflies and welcomed these “weeds” into our manicured gardens.