January 2025 Photo Information

Animal and Camera Details

January

Species shown: Eurasion bullfinch (pyrrula pyrrula) and pine grossbeak (penicola enucleator).

This photo was taken in the boreal forests in Finland, where pine grosbeaks were seen in relatively large numbers. While I was photographing the grosbeaks, a Eurasian bullfinch appeared and challenged the much larger grosbeak. The bullfinch prevailed and the grosbeak took off. It felt a bit like the David and Goliath story!  

Although the population trends for the grosbeak and eurasian bullfinch appear to be decreasing, their IUCN red list category is ‘least concern’. The reason being that these birds occur in a very large area, i.e. the pine grosbeak in most of the boreal forests of northern Eurasia and America and the Eurasian bullfinch in northern and southern Europe and northern Asia.

The photo was taken with Canon R5 with Canon 100-500mm at f/7.1, 1/2500s ISO2000