Its closest living relatives are the genus Eophona of East Asia, and Hesperiphona of Central and North America.

Deciduous or mixed woodland, including parkland, with large trees – especially hornbeam – is favoured for breeding.

The 16.5–18 cm long hawfinch is a bulky bull-headed bird, which appears very short-tailed in flight.

[2] He used the Latin name Coccothraustes which is derived from the Greek: kokkos is a seed or kernel and thrauō means to break or to shatter.

[3] In 1758 Carl Linnaeus included the species in the 10th edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Loxia coccothraustes.

[4][5] The hawfinch was moved to a separate genus Coccothraustes by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760.

Molecular phylogenetic studies have shown that the hawfinch is closely related to other grosbeaks in the Eophona, Hesperiphona and Mycerobas genera.

[12] It is a robust bird with a thick neck, large round head and a wide, strong conical beak with a metallic appearance.

[13] In Asia it can be found in the Caucasus, northern Iran, Afghanistan, Turkistan, Siberia, Manchuria and North Korea.

The species is also found in the New Forest; a central roost site exists here, at the Blackwater Arboretum.

Formerly, hawfinches were regularly encountered in the Windsor Great Park area in winter, though no sizeable gatherings have been reported since the mid-1990s.

The recent (2007–11) BTO Bird Atlas shows no evidence of the hawfinch breeding anywhere in this area; the reasons why are unclear.

In Devon (southwestern England), the hawfinch is largely confined to the upper Teign Valley.

Prime sites include Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire and Hulne Park in Northumberland.

[19] The date for breeding is dependent on the spring temperature and is earlier in southwest Europe and later in the northeast.

The male displays to the female by standing erect, puffing out the feathers on his head, neck and chest and allowing his wings to droop forward.

[19] The nest is normally located high in a tree on a horizontal branch with easy access from the air.

[21] The nest is untidy and is formed of a bulky twig base and a shallow cup lined with roots, grasses and lichens.

[18] The hawfinch is highly unusual among cardueline finches in that the male bird chooses the nest site and starts the construction.

[24] The hawfinch is also unusual in that the nest is kept clean by the parents removing the faecal sacs of the nestlings right up to the time when the chicks fledge.

This behaviour is shared by the Eurasian bullfinch, but most finches cease to remove the faecal material after the first few days.

[26] The maximum age obtained from ring-recovery data is 12 years and 7 months for a bird in Germany.

Other common sources of food include pine seeds, berries, sprouts and the occasional caterpillar and beetle.

The hawfinch is a partial migrant, with northern flocks migrating towards the South during the winter, as shown by ringing techniques.

These same studies showed that those hawfinches inhabiting habitats with a temperate climate would often have sedentary behaviour.

[28] Given the high numbers and huge breeding area, the hawfinch is classified by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being of least concern.