Bullfinches and Prunus Rarely, by chance, birds make up with
flowers some momen- tary colour scheme that is pure enchantment. It was not out of mere decorative idleness that oriental painters depicted birds and flowers so often together. Every now and then a gardener gets these flashed oriental effects for himself. In winter chaffinches, in flocks, break from the grey boughs of bare ash-trees like grey-pink flowers ; in autumn they have a richer grey-pinkness against pink and purple of Michaelmas daisy foam. And all the later summer we sec, at too rare intervals, the gold flash of goldfinches on the bright yellow anthemis daisies, the red and black and gold of bird brighter as the yellow gives way to the brown-gold of seed. About the same time blue-tits and sometimes an occasional bullfinch swing on the pink and lavender wands of godetia like flowers themselves. And yesterday we had a spring sight : a sudden squabbling of three bullfinches in a prunus pissardii, a flicker of plum-pink breasts boldly mingled for a second with pale bronze leaves and pink plum-flowers : a perfect moment.
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