The Hawfinch (Coccothraustes coccothraustes) is the most powerful finch in Sweden — a compact, big-headed bird with an enormous, cone-shaped bill capable of cracking cherry and even olive stones. It measures 16–18 cm long, has a wingspan of 29–33 cm and weighs 45–65 grams, with a reddish-brown body, black chin and eye mask, a grey nape, and black-blue wings crossed by a broad white band. The massive bill — steel-blue in summer, beige in winter — combined with the large head and short tail gives it a distinctive, front-heavy silhouette that has no real match among Sweden's other finches.
Its call is a hard, sharp, often-repeated "ptik" or "ptsik" along with a thin, high "zrii"; the song is so discreet that most birds are detected by call alone, and despite its size the Hawfinch is often shy and hard to spot high in the treetops. It builds a fairly loose stick nest placed high in a deciduous tree, where the female lays 4–5 eggs and both parents feed the young, mainly on insects at first. The powerful bill can exert enormous pressure, letting the bird crack cherry, plum and olive stones as well as beechmast and hornbeam seeds that other finches cannot manage, though insects are taken too in summer. Found mainly in the deciduous forests, parks and gardens of southern and central Sweden, the population — estimated at 10,000–30,000 pairs — has been growing and expanding its range in recent decades.
Read about this species in Swedish →