Goldfinch - nervous feeders? (1 Viewer)

Well, as I was about to post this thread I read the earlier one 'gormless goldfinch' but here goes anyway !

After putting up a port seed feeder to compliment my array of sunflower, fat balls, peanuts etc ....this morning I had my first goldfinch ....however, very nervous and flew off as soon as a great tit arrived ! I think he only had a couple of seeds anyway as he was continually looking round for trouble. So 'gormless goldfinch' apart - are they usually nervous or is it perhaps because it's first visit? also now I know they are around should I invest in a Niger feeder? or are they happy to visit for normal seed ?

Thanks

Rita

Metermaid said:

Well, as I was about to post this thread I read the earlier one 'gormless goldfinch' but here goes anyway !

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Hi Rita, the gormless goldfinch was mine! Generally I find the goldfinches to be reasonably confident, but when I think about it I have never seen them around when the great tits are feeding (the latter come in numbers and scare most other birds, with the exception of the coal tits who aren't scared by anything that isn't a sparrowhawk!). Most of the responses to my thread suggest goldfinches are confident feeders but it'd be interesting to hear whether any particular species spooks them.

Since the goldfinches returned early September both adults and juveniles are reasonably confident feeders arriving for breakfast dinner and tea. They usually muck in with the greenfinches all squabbling for a perch on the feeders, niger feeders goldfinches and sunflower hearts feeder goldfinches and greenfinches, i have also allowed some of the niger seed to sprout and grow which again gives some cover around the niger feeder. The only thing that seems to disturb them are the doves when they try to come to the feeder and the occasional pesky squirrel.I have no regrets about getting a niger feeder and or feeding sunflower hearts when there can be upwards of 20-30 birds all vying for a postion on the feeders.

cheers geoff

My goldfinches are very placid feeders - they just sit on the perch, and munch away for ages. At the moment, niger seed is not much in favour - they prefer sunflower hearts. I have a feeder pole, with five hanging hoooks - two hold hearts, and the others are for niger seed, black sunflower seed and peanuts.

I often had as many as 16 Goldfinch at any one time feeding on niger seed in my North Shields garden and I never got the impression that they were nervous feeders. I only ever had a single Great Tit in just over two years at the town house so can't comment on wether they are nervous of the species but did get a lot of Blue Tit, Blackbird, House Sparrow, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove and Starling and they never seemed to be bothered about them!
When I first put the feeders out I only supplied basic wild bird mix from the local pet shop and one bag of peanuts (which nobody seemed keen on!!!) and the goldfinch happily ate that. But once I put a niger seed feeder up it was what they preferred about 99.9% of the time! It had six feeder holes in it and they would occasionally squabble amongst themselves as to who could get n the feeder. They WERE a bit nervous for the first couple of days after I put the feeder up but once they knew where it was there always seemed to be goldfinch in the garden during daylight hours!!!
We now live, just moved, up in the hills near Wooler and I have seen flocks of Goldfinch around so it'll be interesting to see what I can attract to my feeders once I get them set up in the next couple of days...have already seen Goldcrest and Treecreeper in the trees around the cottage which is tremendously exciting! Certainly never had those two species in North Shields in the middle of town!
As to investing in a niger seed feeder...GET ONE!!!

GILL

Gill Osborne said:

As to investing in a niger seed feeder...GET ONE!!!

GILL

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Niger feeders certainly worked for me - my husband was very sceptical about this, so I was delighted when we had two goldfinches within a couple of days! Numbers increased, so I bought a second niger feeder. This was just as well because eventually I had 19 goldfinches at the same time - until the siskins came along, when they were rather outnumbered (72 siskins together, on one occasion). I'm hoping they'll return this winter - I still have about 20kgs of niger seed left! :eek!:

Wow....credit card in hand I'm off to the CJ site ! - thanks for all the interesting replies

Rita