Those yellow birds like shards of sunlight in your yard are American goldfinches. Among the smallest members of the finch family, goldfinches are gifts to gardeners. Even if deer ate all your daylilies, these birds will brighten your day.
The U.S. has three goldfinch species, two of which are found only in the western states. American goldfinches (Spinus tristis) are found all across America, and in our area, they are with us all year long.
The birds molt into their breeding plumage in mid-spring. Females don new olive-green feathers, good camouflage for nesting. The canary-yellow plumage on a goldfinch male makes him a garden dandy. Both sexes have black flight feathers and pale wing-bars, but the male tops off his yellow outfit with a sexy black beret.
Goldfinch flocks move around in non-breeding seasons, but they don’t migrate far. The reason they seem to disappear in autumn is that they molt into drab attire. In September, when breeding season is largely over, the yellow males start to look patchy. By mid-November, males and females both have brownish-gray plumage, with the males retaining a bit of yellow on their shoulders.
Goldfinch songs and calls are distinctive. The male’s courtship song is high-pitched and musical, a twittery, tinkling series of notes, like a tiny far-off wind chime. In their undulating flight, both males and females issue flight calls at the low curve of the sine wave, as if urging themselves to achieve that upper curve. That diagnostic call sounds like “perchickoree” or “potato chip.” In addition, they often do plaintive contact calls—the sounds that gave them the name tristis.
Like all birds, goldfinches need food, water, and shelter to survive. Not deep-forest birds, they prefer open woodlands, weedy areas and meadows, and streamsides, with shrubs for cover and nest sites. These little birds are vegetarians: their diet consists almost entirely of seeds. Unlike most seed-eating birds, they seldom feed insects to their nestlings, but stuff those noisy gaping beaks with regurgitated seeds. They especially like thistle seeds, and also use soft thistle and cattail down to line their nests. Thistles flower later in summer, so goldfinches nest later than many other garden birds.
The female makes the nest, usually 4 to 14 feet up in an upright fork of a shrub or tree. She weaves the nest from plant fibers, glues it with webbing from spiders or caterpillars, and lines it with plant down. She does all the incubation; the male brings her food. He also feeds the youngsters until they fledge, while she may go on to make a second nest.
Though I seldom see goldfinches drinking or bathing at my birdbath, an unexpected consequence of hanging hummingbird feeders is the pleasure of watching goldfinches leaning in to drink water from the ant-wells. Another surprising appropriation: catnip grown for our cats provides food for the birds. Stems of catnip start bobbing and there’s a goldfinch or two, climbing around on the plants or head-down deep in succulent catnip seeds. (Catnip is a mint that spreads easily, so I wouldn’t plant it unless you want to delight your cats.)
A cheerful sight at birdfeeders, goldfinches readily eat hulled sunflower seeds, but prefer the tiny black nyjer seeds, an exceptional energy source. (Nyjer is often called “thistle” but it’s actually the seeds from an African daisy.) Pines and spruces in your yard provide great year-round shelter and their winter cones can be mined for seeds.
To lure American goldfinches to your garden, plant native thistles (Cirsium), coneflowers (Echinacea), black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) and sunflowers (Helianthus). When blooming is finished, don’t be quick to deadhead the plants. Goldfinches eager to take the seeds will come to your garden like flying flowers.
Happily, these beautiful birds are common and widespread; their conservation status is “species of least concern” and their population is stable. That’s good news.
Our first stop was Rock Creek Park near Diane’s house, where the woods were full of birdsong and bikers on a sunny morning. Migration has been a little late this year, but we did hear a Northern Parula, a Swainson’s Thrush, and a couple of flycatchers. An animated conversation between two Barred Owls made us smile—what wonderful voices! Two Wood Thrushes were wasting their time fighting when they could have been caroling.
Diane heard a Magnolia Warbler singing by the creek and we found him, a yellow-and-black marvel. The long phrases of a Warbling Vireo (a bird I first found on a long-ago Birdathon) caused him to be added to our list.
We stared sadly at the big inert animal. Then the “dead” beaver moved a paw and we exclaimed in relief. The beaver hauled itself upright, turned its back on us interlopers, and lay down again to snooze in the shade.
Blue Mash was the next stop. Right away a Prairie Warbler asked to be counted, and a Field Sparrow chimed in. We walked the grassy trail toward the small pond, picking up a White-eyed Vireo and a surprise straggler: a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The pond provided nothing new, so we backtracked to the car, where we heard the slow two-noted song of a Yellow-throated Vireo, our fourth vireo species.
How lucky we are to have so many beautiful beech trees nearby! Beeches (Fagus grandifolia), my favorite trees, are common on the slopes above Bel Pre Creek. Many are tall and venerable elders, with canopy too dense to allow much undergrowth. Where several beeches are close, they create a splendid open look of dappled glades and thick silvery trunks; spaces are pillared and vaulted like cathedral cloisters.
with dark new growth that ends in pointed amber flames of tightly furled leaf buds. I walk across netted roots on an amber carpet of the last generation of leaves. Amber to green to amber again. A beautiful progression.
By late April, the beeches’ upper branches are golden-green crowns, while the lower leaves are still tightly held by the furled amber calyxes. Soon the leaves all burst forth, and the hill above the creek is a glory of tender soft green. The new leaves, fully out, are edged with fine pale hairs and creased like a partly folded fan. Beneath the trees lies a litter of cast‑off amber hulls.
he slope, merging with and melting into the earth, holding fast lest earth and tree slide together into the creek. Branches and roots capture rainfall, slowing its progress to the ground and retarding its loss. Old leaves and fallen branches contribute to uneven, spongy soil surfaces that divert and slow runoff on its way down to the creek. Boughs shade the water and keep its temperature cooler on warm days.
Our Red-shouldered Hawks’ nest was empty, naturally, but the sharp “Pizza!” song of an Acadian Flycatcher led me to discover another nest. Acadian nests always look messy, with their typical long strands of dangling vegetation, but this one was clearly the worse for wear after our recent heavy downpours and strong winds. I hope all the babies had fledged successfully before the storms.
She found a Barred Owl perched high above us. The owl wearied of mockingbird curses and flew away, leaving the mocker victorious. An Indigo Bunting serenaded our rainy muddy slog to the small pond, where the nicely timed arrival of a Great Blue Heron made it worth the trip.
To our great delight, as soon as we got there and lowered the windows, we struck gold! On Diane’s side, a White-eyed Vireo was singing. From the field on my side came an Eastern Meadowlark’s liquid notes. Hallelujah! We hadn’t heard a meadowlark in years, and in our relief at non-extirpation, we joyfully high-fived.
olk-yellow bird was number 84, our 15th warbler, and also our last new species.
but one feeder is visible from my kitchen chair. A large sunflower seed feeder stands in a barrel on the patio. Sunflower seed is gobbled up by most of the backyard birds. Beyond it, a tall pole holds three dangling tube feeders (one each for safflower seeds, peanuts, and nyger) and one mounted suet feeder. Woodpeckers and blue jays love the suet and the peanuts, chickadees and finches eat the safflower, while goldfinches and house finches eat the tiny black nyger (thistle) seeds. All scatter when a Cooper’s hawk flies in!
-throated sparrows scuffle through the nearby garden. A red-bellied woodpecker clings to the suet feeder, repelling other boarders, while a red-breasted nuthatch hangs upside-down on the peanut feeder. They all become part of avian history.
Cecily Nabors 