Goldflap
A goldfinch, red-faced, gold-barred, the sort of bird that off-world garden centres put on seed-feeder packaging because it photographs well. Goldflaps still photograph well. They are considerably harder to get a photograph of.
They travel in charms, the proper collective term, and a goldflap charm moves as one shifting unit through hedgerow and thistle-patch, feeding on seedheads at a rate that strips a stand of teasel bare in an afternoon. Individually fragile -- the bones are close to hollow even by bird standards -- but a startled charm bursting upward all at once is disorientating enough to have put at least one cyclist I know of straight into a wall.
The call is the tell. A goldflap charm keeps up a constant, tinkling chatter while feeding, and when that chatter stops dead, all at once, something's approaching that the charm rates as a threat. It is, in my experience, a more reliable warning system than most of the tech on sale in Hellsborough's markets, and it doesn't need charging.
They favour waste ground and old rail sidings, anywhere the thistle and teasel have gone unmanaged, which in Hellsborough is most places.
Field note: if you're walking waste ground and the goldflap chatter cuts out mid-charm, stop and look round before you take another step.
| Type | Blinker |
| HP | 1 |
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