Female Greenfinch: How to Identify Her, Male vs Female and Young

This page is about telling Greenfinches apart: adult males, adult females and young birds, and the brown finches and sparrows a female or young Greenfinch can be mistaken for. For everything else about the bird, see Greenfinch identification, song and facts.

Look at the colour of the body. A male is olive-green, yellowish on the breast and bright yellow-green on the rump. A female is grey-brown, "a dull brown colour" in the RSPB's words, with a slightly green rump.¹

Then look at the yellow. Both sexes have a yellow stripe along the edge of the wing and yellow at the sides of the tail, but on the female it is narrower and paler. She also has white feathers under the tail, and a greyer bill than the male's pinkish one.²

A stocky, grey-brown finch with a heavy, pale bill. Her head and back are duller and greyer than a male's, her rump slightly green, and she is white under the tail. Along the closed wing she shows a yellow line, thinner than the male's, and fine pale yellow edges to the flight feathers; when she spreads her tail, there is a little yellow at its base.

Not noticeably. In BTO measurements of live birds, adult males averaged 27.5 g and a wing of 88.8 mm, and females 27.8 g and 86.3 mm.³ Size is no help in telling them apart.

Young Greenfinches, out of the nest from late spring through the summer, look like a female but are browner and streaked. Their heads and backs are buffish-brown with dark feather centres, and their underparts pale buff-brown with dark streaks on the breast, belly and flanks. They have only narrow, dull yellow edges in the wing and at the base of the tail, and a pale bill with a pinkish base.

Young males and females look alike at this stage.

A male in winter is duller and browner than in spring, so the difference between the sexes is smaller from autumn to early spring.

A female Siskin is smaller, heavily streaked, with a fine bill and yellow wing bars. See Siskin or Greenfinch.

A young Goldfinch is streaky brown too, but it already has the adult's yellow wing patch on black wings, and white spots on its black tail.⁴

A female House Sparrow has a pale stripe behind the eye, a back striped buff, black and brown, and plain grey-brown underparts, with no yellow in the wing or tail.⁵

She builds the nest on her own, while the male goes with her as she gathers material, and she incubates the eggs alone. The male feeds her on the nest, and both parents feed the chicks.

Females sing, but much less often and more quietly than males. Nests, eggs and chicks: Greenfinch nesting.

1. RSPB. Greenfinch. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 7 October 2026. Source
2. Clement, P., de Juana, E. (2020). European Greenfinch (Chloris chloris), version 1.0. Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie and E. de Juana, editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.eurgre1.01
3. BTO. Greenfinch (Chloris chloris). BTO BirdFacts. Accessed 7 October 2026. Source
4. RSPB. Goldfinch. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 7 October 2026. Source
5. Lowther, P. E., Cink, C. L. (2020). House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), version 1.0. Birds of the World (S. M. Billerman, editor). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.houspa.01
6. RSPB. Siskin. RSPB Birds A-Z. Accessed 7 October 2026. Source
7. Clement, P. (2020). Eurasian Siskin (Spinus spinus), version 1.0. Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo et al., editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.eursis.01