For the Birds: Our State Bird — the American Goldfinch

 

Male feeding adult female note plumage difference - probable mating bonding.
Photo by Doug Parrott

By Christine Southwick

The American Goldfinch with its vibrant yellow plumage, black cap worn jauntily low over its forehead, black tail, and wings edged with white, is always a welcome sight at local feeders.

Goldfinches arrive in small flocks, first heard calling while flying in an up-down rollercoaster fashion.

Winter use of birdbath. Note bird in middle is a Pine Siskin flanked by two goldfinches.
Photo by Christine Southwick

The American Goldfinch is the only finch that molts its body feathers twice a year: in early spring the male changes into the lemon-yellow breeding plumage that so many of us expect when we think of goldfinches; in late fall their body feathers are exchanged for yellow olive-brown ones, minus the cap. 

The females stay a dullish olive-yellow with yellow highlights that are bright yellow in the summer, and pale in the winter. Females have two light wing bars on their black wings, versus the single white wing bar that the male displays. Both have pink conical bills in the summer which turn dark in the winter.

Two males eating sunflower seeds at my feeder. There
were eight plus goldfinches including females-delightful!
Photo by Christine Southwick

Most goldfinches arrive in our area mid-April and leave mid-October, but there are always a few hardy flocks that stay and grace our presence, roaming from weed-patch to open fields, staying for a while in yards with seed-heads and seed feeders, and then nomadically moving on to the next source of seeds.

American Goldfinches are happiest in abandoned fields and roadsides where they consume vast amounts of thistle¸ dandelion, tree (especially maple), and other wild seeds.

By using their feet extensively while feeding, American Goldfinches are able to pluck seeds that other birds can’t access. 

They are classified as “granivores”, meaning that they are almost totally vegetation, eating only seeds, or maybe a few aphids. 

They even feed their four-to six nestlings regurgitated seeds, not insects.

Their breeding season starts in July, later than any other finch, timed to use seed fibers, especially thistle down, for their nests, and to have ripe weed and flower seeds for eating.

Close up of male.
Photo by Christine Southwick

Bring American Goldfinches into your yard with nyjer thistle seed, black-oil sunflower seeds, and bird baths. 

Place your feeders in an open area away from overhanging tree branches. (Note if you use black-oil sunflower seeds with shells, starlings can’t eat those seeds.)

Do not use any pesticides or weed killers.

Plant zinnias, cosmos, bee balm and perennial flowering plants, and leave the flower heads until spring for winter feeding. 

You may be rewarded with a fly-in by these cheerful Wild Canaries.

Previous For the Birds columns can be viewed here.