Brambling photographed at Pleinmont [PLE] on 29/11/2012 Photo: © Mike Cunningham (visit site)

Historically, Brambling have been a very rare bird. Smith describes them as a very rare occasional straggler, by no means occurring every year and there are only two records mentioned in Dobson's book, one bird in January 1855 and a female killed in Brock Road in December 1878. Today, however, Brambling are an annual autumn migrant and winter visitor. The number of birds recorded in Guernesy varies between years and, like Siskin and Crossbill, Brambling tend to occur irruptively in the islands.

Since 1969, large numbers of birds have only been recorded in two winters. During the winter of 1975/76 100 birds were recorded at the St Sampson's Marais in November and 75 birds were at Les Landes in December, rising to 150 in January. Surprisingly only three other records were received for that winter including a report of a 'large flock' at Port Vaillant in March.

Eight years later, in the winter of 1983/84, large flocks of birds were present at three sites with 50 at Les Buttes (near Sous l'Eglise) in January, a flock of 120 birds at La Prevoté in January and February and 60 birds were again present at Les Landes in December. During these irruption years birds did not arrive during the autumn migration but in December or January. Large numbers (300+) occurred in Alderney in January 1979 (Conder).

Although birds have been recorded in every calendar year it is perhaps more useful to look at their occurrence in terms of 'winters', running from 1 June each year (see 1969-98 graphs). Since 1969, an average of approximately 25 birds have been recorded each season. Blank autumns and winters occurred in 1969/70, 1976/77 and 1995/96. In all other years the number of birds wintering in Guernsey has been small and over 75% of the records refer to single birds or flocks of <5 birds. The only other records of 20+ birds are from the Reservoir in November 1971, Moulin Huet in January 1972, 50+ at the airport in October 1980, Castel in January 1985, Pulias in January 1986, the Vale Marais between January and March 1987 and L'Ancresse in November 1998.

Autumn migration peaks in the last two weeks of October and the first two weeks of November. In non-irruption winters, small numbers numbers of Brambling remain in winter and there is evidence of an influx throughout January, peaking at the end of the month. After this, numbers tend to drop away rapidly and very few birds are seen after the end of March.

In winter, Brambling are usually widely distributed across the islands and are often found in gardens or weedy fields - no one site regularly holds birds in winter. In autumn, many records are from coastal headlands and refer to flyovers. Bramblings often associate with flocks of other finches, especially Chaffinches, and occasionally come to bird-tables. Over the past 10 years, most records have come from Pleinmont in autumn but, in winter, the Foulon area and Talbot, Fauxquets and Quanteraine valleys often hold small numbers of birds but the majority of winter records come from scattered localities.