Where are the Goldfinches?
It’s Fall and Where are the Goldfinches?
If you’re wondering where all the beautiful “gold” goldfinches are, take a closer look. If you see an olive-drab bird at your feeder, it might be a goldfinch in its winter plumage. Female goldfinches retain their muted coloring year-round. But for the winter, males replace their bright gold body feathers with dull ones.
These on again, off again, winter wanderers may appear in your yard in large numbers one year, and might be gone the next. Only their unpredictable behavior is predictable. Their irregularity is caused by seasonal migrations, weather, and food supply fluctuations. The availability and quantity of cones, berries, seeds, and insects vary from year to year, causing birds to move around to take advantage of food surpluses and to leave areas with food shortages.
But there are several things you can do to attract goldfinches to your yard:
- Make sure your seed is fresh and dry inside your feeder. Shake your feeder periodically to ensure that the seed is dry inside.
- Keep your feeders clean. Finches are finicky and will avoid dirty feeders.
- Make sure the seed does not stay in the feeder uneaten for more than a month (two to four weeks if the weather has been wet)
- Place your finch feeder away from other feeders where larger birds are feeding. This allows the smaller birds’ access to the finch feeder without being harassed by larger birds.
- Finches are notorious for leaving a tube feeder half full. Remove the older seed. Fill the bottom of your feeder with new seed and top it off with the older seed if it’s still dry.
- Finches don’t like change. It may take them only a few moments, or up to several months, to accept a new feeder or one that has been moved.
Goldfinches are well known for arriving at feeders in large numbers, so keep plenty of Nyjer seed on hand. The Connecticut Audubon Society Nature Store at the Center at Fairfield has seed and feeders specifically for finches. Knowledgeable staff at the Center at Fairfield can help you with your selection.
Our final words of advice? Keep your feeders full and binoculars ready.
