chaffinch

• All the other birds in the top 10 - blue tit, chaffinch, woodpigeon, collared dove, great tit, robin and long-tailed tit - were slightly up in numbers. —  The Independent - Frontpage RSS Feed
• Skippy was asleep in plaster-dust, dreaming the dreams dogs dream, so I put out a bowl of reconstituted meat chunks in jelly ready for him when he awoke, and I retired to my pallet, wondering at the fresh tattoo of a stylised chaffinch which had appeared on my ankle, and what it meant, and what it portended for my future. —  Hooting Yard
• He even remembered something about an official communication which he had opened a day or two before, and hastily dropped in order to fling a book at a strange cat that had come into the garden, and was cowering in wait for a chaffinch. —  The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols
• One never is so near to folly as then The Professor threw some crumbs to a chaffinch, which had flown down within a few yards of the tea-table I think you are disposed, at present, to criticise yourself too mercilessly," he said in a tone that had drawn forth many a confidence. —  The Daughters of Danaus
• The excellent Mr. Willughby mentions the nest of the Palumbus (ring-dove), and of the Fringilla (chaffinch), birds that subsist on acorns and grains, and such hard food: but then he does not mention them as of his own knowledge, but says afterwards that he saw himself a wagtail feeding a cuckoo. —  The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1

Used in the Same Context