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Goldfinches gallore !! (1 Viewer)

Metermaid

Metermaid

Well-known member
Well after starting with one or two goldfinches they seem to have told their friends and now I have at this moment 15 on my feeders - I am absolutely ecstatic :bounce:

I tried niger seed but not wanting to invest too heavily in case it was ignored, I bought a mini feeder £2.95 which was an excellent, cheap way to test the water. (Thanks to Elizabeth Bigg for link to www.gardenbird.com which is where I found these, excellent site and very quick delivery), anyway several of the finches are fighting over this so I will now invest in bigger feeder and big bag of seed !
 
Congratulations! I had 6 the other day and they are going on the niger feeder again - perhaps niger offers something not found in sunflower hearts?
 
I've only ever had one Goldfinch and he just had a look from the fence and decided not to bother.

BUT I recently stayed in a farm cottage in Cornwall and woke to find dozens of them on the field jumping onto the dandylion clocks to push them to the ground and eat the seeds. It was a marvellous thing to see and made up for my lack of Goldfinches back home.
 
I am envious. I rarely get goldfinches in my garden so would like to try niger seed. Does it grow if it falls onto the soil? This has been a problem with normal bird seed so I now use sunflower hearts.

Thanks

Dave
 
I have 1 niger feeder in my garden and it is rare to look out and not to see Goldfinch feeding, I recently counted 10, maybe it's been a good breeding year, there are plenty of youngsters about ;)
 
I bought a seed feeder about three years ago. It attracted Goldfinches but now everything seems to use it, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Siskin, Blue/Great Tits, Collared Dove (it's great seeing them trying to land on the tray at the bottom) and yesterday for the first time a GS Woodpecker! It tried to peck some seed out but resorted to flinging the seed from the tray. What a great sight.


Rob

PS the Goldfinches seem to like the conifer near to the feeder too, 7 in there last week.
 
Rob Williams said:
I bought a seed feeder about three years ago. It attracted Goldfinches but now everything seems to use it, Greenfinches, Chaffinches, Siskin, Blue/Great Tits, Collared Dove (it's great seeing them trying to land on the tray at the bottom) and yesterday for the first time a GS Woodpecker! It tried to peck some seed out but resorted to flinging the seed from the tray. What a great sight.


Rob

PS the Goldfinches seem to like the conifer near to the feeder too, 7 in there last week.
Click to expand...

Yesterday I spotted a 6 goldfinch attacking the thistle seed heads in the corner of my garden. There are benefits to having an untidy garden!

Norma
 
d.steeley said:
I am envious. I rarely get goldfinches in my garden so would like to try niger seed. Does it grow if it falls onto the soil? This has been a problem with normal bird seed so I now use sunflower hearts.

Thanks

Dave
Click to expand...

Yes, it grows here under the feeders - but I'd rather have goldfinches than a perfect lawn!
 
Wow...isn't it just wonderful when so many different birds arrive, there were so many goldfinches out there earlier that 7 or 8 were feeding on the floor because they couldn't fit on the feeders - I did notice that probably about 1/4 were juveniles.

Rob - I envy you your Siskins !
 
Not many

I don't get that many goldfinches in my garden but in the last day or two there's been at least one regular visitor which is great.

Under one of my seed feeders, some of the sunflower seeds that had been dropped by my "guests" germinated during the summer and I've had quite a pleasant circle of yellow headed plants about 15 to 18 inches high I guess they are.

Anyway, last Friday I think it was, I watched the goldfinch land towards the head of one of the sunflowers and used his weight to bend it down to the ground. When it was in position to his satisfaction, he just pecked and chewed away at the seeds that were obviously there whilst keeping the flower head firmly on the ground. When it had had enough, he moved on to the next one! And each flower bounced back as though nothing had happened - not a one has been broken!

Great to watch.
 
Be patient Rita - you are probably not aware (since you joined quite recently) - so I'll say it again. First of all the niger attracted goldfinches - 19 after a while, then the siskins moved in - until I had 72!!! This was either near the end of last year, or early this year - I'll search for the thread and PM it to you, but I probably won't have time to do that until this evening.
 
Interesting this as I had about 10 Goldfinches in the garden last week, including juveniles. I do not have a niger feeder as the Goldfinches seem quite content to feed on the "normal" seed feeders, i.e. mixed grain and sunflower seeds.

Maybe this is just the time of the year when Goldfinches naturally spill into gardens and feed on whatever is available because of a temporary shortage of natural food.

(Any excuse to keep the feeding costs down!).

Steve
 
I have discontinued niger seed and moved to sunflower hearts over the past three weeks. The result is that I am getting higher numbers of goldfinch since the changeover. Yesterday I had almost twenty falling out over three feeders and incidentally fighting off a number of greenfinches.

Regards
 
Wow - looks like lots of us are getting quite high numbers - I haven't as yet had problems with bird seed germinating but I thought it was treated in some way to prevent this ?
 
Just added another niger seed feeder to stop the fighting and the long queues for the single feeder! Peaked 10 mins ago with 13 Goldfinches,2 Great Tits,2 Blue Tits and a Robin, very pleased as I live in quite a built up area ;)
 
Metermaid said:
Wow...isn't it just wonderful when so many different birds arrive, there were so many goldfinches out there earlier that 7 or 8 were feeding on the floor because they couldn't fit on the feeders - I did notice that probably about 1/4 were juveniles.

Rob - I envy you your Siskins !
Click to expand...

I only get the siskins in the winter...though I originally only had the goldfinches from autumn to early spring, now they come all through the year. It's not often I get 7, usually 1,2 or 3.


Rob
 
My Goldfinches disappeared until last week when one was coming regularly, and again this week, just the one, until today, and there were five, three on the sunflower hearts and two on the niger, wonder if I shall get better than my previous record of eleven this winter :bounce:
 
6 Goldfinches today. The GS Woodpecker decided to stick to the conventional peanuts and fat cake. Then he flew to a large oak tree some distance where I was able to see him running up and down the trunk. Why did the male not visit in the summer and now the female doesn't come?


Rob
 
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