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Goldfinches (1 Viewer)

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Frisko78

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Hi all. I'm totally obsessed with goldfinches. I have between 4 and 8 regular daily visitors. 4 of them don't have the red markings on their face yet, but the wing markings are clearly goldfinch ones with the beautiful yellow, black and white.

Do female goldfinches have the red markings on their face? I wonder if the ones I see are all juveniles. Some of them clearly show it by behaviour,e.g. they start to loudly demand to be fed by their parent, even if they're standing in front of the food!

Thanks, Francesco
 
Adult Goldfinches of both sexes have red on the face, and for practical purpose the sexes are indistinguishable. If there's no red on the face, you're looking at juveniles. Lovely birds, I can understand your interest!
 
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I learnt just recently you can tell the difference between a male and a female. The male is bigger and the red covers past it's eye, the female is smaller and the red part stops at the centre of the eye. I've just recently got Goldfinches feeding at the garden so this will be interesting to see what's male and what's female.
 
eca321 said:
Hi I was also looking at head markings on garden goldfinches yesterday, I have a big group of juveniles and some adults, so I am now looking properly (rather then just glancing and saying juv or adult), there is quite a variation in the younger birds head markings as they developing at different rates. I was googling and found the following interesting:


https://community.rspb.org.uk/cfs-f.../13609/3073.431_5F00_GoldfinchC.carduelis.pdf
Click to expand...

This is just brilliant, thank you!
 
Nutcracker said:
European Goldfinch :t:
Click to expand...
Ah, thanks.

So I'm curious, how similar is the European Goldfinch to the American Goldfinch? Does the European Goldfinch say "potato chip"?

Does it prefer niger (thistle) seed, and do the Europeans use special thistle feeders that finches can feed from but larger birds can't? The American Goldfinch likes sunflower seeds as much as the next bird, but it's a shy bird and is reluctant to compete for seeds, which is why we have these special thistle feeders just for them. And they can feed upside down, which House Sparrows can't do (we call them House Sparrows, you call them English Sparrows; we don't like them), so the hole is often placed below the perch.

It seems there is one big difference - the male and female American Goldfinch are immediately distinguishable; male is bright yellow, female is sort of pale green.
 
Leviticus Plews said:
Ah, thanks.

So I'm curious, how similar is the European Goldfinch to the American Goldfinch? Does the European Goldfinch say "potato chip"?

Does it prefer niger (thistle) seed, and do the Europeans use special thistle feeders that finches can feed from but larger birds can't? The American Goldfinch likes sunflower seeds as much as the next bird, but it's a shy bird and is reluctant to compete for seeds, which is why we have these special thistle feeders just for them. And they can feed upside down, which House Sparrows can't do (we call them House Sparrows, you call them English Sparrows; we don't like them), so the hole is often placed below the perch.

It seems there is one big difference - the male and female American Goldfinch are immediately distinguishable; male is bright yellow, female is sort of pale green.
Click to expand...
Related, but not especially closely - they're in the same family, but different genera. Listen to the calls at the opus link above to see how their calls sound. Food fairly similar for both; yes, ours like thistle seed as well, and yes, they can feed upside down, though they prefer being the right way up.

PS we call House Sparrows, House Sparrows too, or sometimes 'spuggy' / 'spuggies' as a nickname. And we like them (mostly!) :t:
 
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