The Common Linnet (Linaria cannabina) is the small, lively finch of hedgerow edges and meadows, found across Sweden, Norway and Denmark. In breeding plumage the male shows a red forehead and red breast set against a grey-brown back and grey head, giving a strikingly colourful overall look, while the female lacks any red and is streaked brown throughout. Both sexes share pale-edged flight feathers that form visible pale panels on the wing, a relatively small conical bill and a slightly forked tail. It measures 13–14 cm in length, has a wingspan of about 21–26 cm and weighs only 15–22 grams.
Flocks give a lively, twittering "tsvit-tsvit" in flight, and the male's song is a soft, pleasant and varied melodic twitter with whistling notes, delivered from a bush or wire. The Common Linnet occurs throughout Sweden except in the mountain range, favouring open, bushy farmland, and while the national population still runs into the hundreds of thousands of pairs, it shows a declining trend linked to intensified agriculture reducing the weed seeds it depends on. It is partly resident and partly a short-distance migrant, with some birds wintering in southern Sweden. Nests are built low in dense, often thorny bushes such as blackthorn or juniper, frequently in loosely knit groups, as a neat cup of straw and rootlets lined with hair and feathers; the female lays 4–6 eggs, incubated for around two weeks, and pairs often manage two broods in a season. The diet is almost entirely small seeds, with a strong preference for seeds from arable weeds and wild herbs — unusually for a small bird, even the chicks are fed mainly on seeds rather than insects.
Read about this species in Swedish →