My father used to call them “salad birds”. Reference guides refer to them as Spinus tristus. Most of us know the bright, acrobatic birds as goldfinches. Though they look as colorful as parakeets, guidebook authors sometimes damn these songbirds with faint praise because of their ubiquitous presence among us.
All I know is that American goldfinches are the icing on the cake of late summer gardening. At this time of the year, the males flit around dressed in their finest—bright yellow bodies, with black foreheads and white-banded black wings Their tails have jaunty notches and their bills are orangy-pink. As is so often the case in the bird world, the females are more subdued, sporting olive-colored backs and dull yellow underbodies. This disparity hardly seems fair to me, but it is all the same to the goldfinches.
Most of the time in my garden, I see the goldfinches hard at work foraging for coneflower seeds, which are among their favorites. The birds bounce back and forth from the little willow, to the abelia bush, to the roses of Sharon. They are not terribly high flyers and generally nest in trees or shrubs that are less than thirty feet tall. I suspect that an active goldfinch nest is cleverly hidden either in the garden or nearby, though I have never been able to locate it. Last spring I picked up two abandoned ones that were blown from the trees during the winter.
The goldfinches do not love my yard for its beauty, which is a good thing, because this year it is rather wild. They love it for its food and shelter resources. Those drab-colored females are the builders of the species, putting together cup-shaped nests, each about three inches wide. Constructed of plant fibers and made cozy with linings of down from favorite seed plants like thistles, they are bound to the crooks of tree branches with spider web filament. Goldfinch mothers are clearly superior engineers, as the nests are so tightly woven that they are nearly waterproof. Since the female goldfinch has to sit in that nest twelve to fourteen days before her clutch of pale blue eggs will hatch, the comfort factor makes sense.
Unlike some other avian species that lay eggs in the spring, goldfinches nest in midsummer, when the various flowers of the daisy or Asteraceae family are setting seed. In addition to coneflower and thistle seeds, goldfinches relish asters and most likely the seeds of such things as coreopsis, boltonia, zinnia and sunflower. I grow lots of daisies, so in the mornings and early evenings, I often see goldfinches gamboling around the yard. Though I didn’t think of the goldfinches when the plants were chosen, the birds are a highly desirable unintended consequence of my daisy habit.
In my part of the world, goldfinches are year-round birds, but they are less noticeable in the fall and winter, as the males lose their bright feathers and turn as drab as their mates. Since they are primarily seed eaters, they welcome the presence of garden bird feeders filled with sunflower or nyjer seeds.
Bird feeders are important for these seed-loving creatures, but creating a good habitat should be one of the goals of home gardening. While goldfinches are far from endangered, some sources note that their numbers may be declining over time. Songbirds in general are up against the forces of pollution and development, so human admirers have to fill in the environmental gaps by indulging in bird-friendly gardening. This means planting seed and berry-bearing species, including the daisy family members beloved of goldfinches. Many online and conventional plant guides now indicate whether a specific species or variety attracts birds, butterflies or pollinating insects. Make a habit of checking this information. Use mixed plantings of annuals, perennials, shrubs, grasses and small trees, to provide a maximum of cover for the birds and keep pesticide and herbicide use to an absolute minimum. Let seedheads stay on your perennials after the blooms have faded to provide an avian smorgasbord. If you are friendly in this way to the birds, they will repay the favor by dispatching pests like aphids and Japanese beetles.
Even if you rarely think about the higher environmental purpose of bird-friendly gardening, consider the immediate benefits. Nothing is more colorful and joyful on a hot summer day than watching a male goldfinch making his rounds among the ripening coneflower seedheads. That alone is enough to justify the expense of a few extra daisy plants.