Tag: Goldfinch

Seeds For Goldfinch

Goldfinch (Spinus tristis). These two are male Goldfinches. A little hard to tell it is a male without its trademark black forehead, which appears during the summer. Now dressed in their winter feathers. Birds that molt twice a year. At the end of summer, and then again at the end of winter. Each time growing in a complete set of new feathers.

The Goldfinch at the top is at a Nyger seed feeder, a favorite seed. Taken yesterday morning, with an inch of snow on the ground.

Another Goldfinch, another favorite seed, Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia fulgida).

Seed heads left in the garden to feed the little birds as they come through the yard during the winter.

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Garden In Winter

Gardens in winter can be a source of food for many animals. Let those seedheads stay for the birds to enjoy. This is a male Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) in his winter attire.

Goldfinch are here year ’round. They come to my feeders for the black oil sunflower seeds that I put out, but they also come to my gardens to dine on the seadheads that are left from last summer’s blooms.

In this case, this fellow is enjoying the seeds of Eastern Coneflower (Rudbeckia fulgida).

Seeds to help keep the birds warm.

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Yellow

Looking through my photographs just now. In the file of yellow images, I came upon this one, taken May 12, 2020. A still mottled, male Goldfinch (Spinus tristis). He’s not totally grown in his complete breeding attire. But soon to be gorgeous in his yellow and black feathers. He’s perched on a seedhead of Siberian Iris (Iris sibirica) with a couple of purple buds of the same species in the background.

The Goldfinches at my feeders have increased in numbers, coming to a great crescendo. The past couple days there have been thirty or forty of the yellow birds out there with their sweet calls, gobbling up the hulled sunflower seeds. And the molting progresses. Many of them are looking much like this little guy. Almost complete.

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Spring Molt

Like many small songbirds, the Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) goes through two molts per year. One in the autumn, a complete molt. A total replacement of all their feathers, body feathers as well as wing and tail feathers. Male and female, they go from yellow to a dull gray with just the slightest suggestion of yellow. In the autumn molt the male loses his distinctive black forehead.

In the spring, right about now, the spring molt is taking place. Leaving behind the dull color and taking on a yellow. In the case of the male the yellow is the brilliant yellow that we think of with Goldfinches. The female is a softer yellow and those females don’t have the black forehead which is a distinctive characteristic of the male. This spring molt is partial. The wing and tail feathers which came in, new, in the autumn molt are not replaced.

These photographs were taken yesterday, April 3rd. This male Goldfinch is looking a bit disheveled because of the spring molt, but given just a bit of time he will be looking quite handsome.

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