Bird Profile

American Goldfinch

The goldfinch is the only common feeder bird that changes color so completely that people think it has left. It has not. It is on your feeder right now, wearing olive.

The American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) is a small, short-tailed, notch-tailed finch about 5 inches (13 cm) long, weighing roughly half an ounce (14 g), and it is on your feeder more often than you think. Breeding males are lemon yellow with a black cap, black wings and white wingbars. Everything else, including the same males in winter, is olive-buff and easy to write off as "some little brown bird".

Goldfinches are also the closest thing North America has to a vegetarian songbird. They are so committed to seeds that they feed their nestlings regurgitated seed pulp, and they delay nesting until midsummer to match the seed crop.

This profile covers the molt that makes them unrecognizable twice a year, the seed and feeder combination that works, why nyjer feeders go quiet, their unusually late nesting, and how to tell them from the other small finches at a feeder.

How to identify an American Goldfinch#

Breeding male, roughly April to September: brilliant yellow body, jet black cap on the forehead, black wings with a white wingbar, white edging in the tail, and a bright orange-pink conical bill. There is no other yellow-and-black bird this small at a feeder.

Breeding female: duller olive-yellow, no black cap, same black wings and pale wingbars.

Winter, both sexes: grayish to olive-buff, sometimes with a faint yellow wash on the face and throat, black wings, buffy wingbars, and a dull grayish bill. Males often keep a yellow shoulder or throat hint.

Flight is the giveaway in any plumage. Goldfinches bound through the air in deep undulations, giving a bright per-chick-o-ree or potato-chip call on each rise. Once you learn the call you will find you have goldfinches overhead constantly.

Siskins are the important one, because they flock with goldfinches at the same feeders through winter. If a "dull goldfinch" is streaked, it is a siskin.

The molt that fools everyone#

Goldfinches are the only North American finch that molts all of its body feathers twice a year, in late winter and again in fall. That is why the bird is unrecognizable between seasons.

The spring molt runs roughly February through April and is often visible as a patchy, moth-eaten look: a male halfway through can be blotched yellow and olive at the same time. The fall molt runs through September and October and takes the yellow away.

What goldfinches eat#

Seeds, and very little else. Goldfinches favor the seeds of composite plants: thistle, sunflower, aster, coneflower, coreopsis, and also alder, birch, elm and evening primrose. Insects turn up only incidentally.

That has one practical consequence worth knowing. Because they feed young on seed rather than insects, brown-headed cowbird chicks laid in a goldfinch nest usually starve within a few days. The goldfinch is one of the few common hosts that a cowbird cannot successfully parasitize.

Nyjer is not thistle, despite the labeling. It is the seed of an African daisy, Guizotia abyssinica, imported and heat-treated so it cannot sprout. It is expensive, and the biggest waste is buying more than you will use in about six weeks. Storage advice is in storing bird seed.

The feeder setup that works#

Goldfinches are light, agile and completely comfortable hanging upside down, which gives you options no other feeder bird does.

• A nyjer or finch feeder with ports about 1/8 inch (3 mm) across. Anything wider pours nyjer on the ground.
• A mesh tube, which lets several birds cling anywhere on the surface rather than queueing at ports. Goldfinches flock, so cling space matters more than port count.
• A standard tube feeder with sunflower hearts, which many yards find outperforms nyjer outright.
• Upside-down feeders, with ports below the perch, exclude nearly everything except goldfinches and siskins.

Hang finch feeders 5 feet (1.5 m) up, within about 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) of a tree or shrub they can retreat to. Goldfinches are more tolerant of open placement than cardinals, but they still want a bailout perch. Two smaller feeders spaced apart hold more birds than one big one, which is the argument in how many feeders and how far apart.

Drainage is not optional. Nyjer that gets wet cakes solid in a few days and then molds, the problem covered in moldy, clumped or wet seed.

Behavior worth knowing#

Flocking. Outside the breeding season goldfinches move in loose flocks that can number dozens, often mixed with siskins and redpolls. Flock size at feeders usually peaks in late winter when wild seed is exhausted.

Feeding manners. They are minimally aggressive by feeder standards. Disputes are brief flutter-and-gape displays rather than real fights, and a full finch feeder will hold a peaceful crowd all day.

Voice. Besides the flight call, males sing a long, canary-like warble from perches and in flight through spring and summer.

Territory, sort of. Breeding pairs defend only a small area, and goldfinches will nest surprisingly close to each other in good habitat.

Nesting, months after everyone else#

Goldfinches are among the latest nesters in North America. Pairs form in early summer, but nest building typically begins in late June or July, and young are still being fed in August and September.

The nest is a compact cup of plant fibers, bark strips and spider silk, lashed into a fork in a shrub or sapling, usually 3 to 10 feet (1 to 3 m) up. It is lined with plant down, most famously thistle down, and is woven so tightly that it will hold water. Clutches are typically 4 to 6 pale bluish-white eggs, incubated about 12 to 14 days by the female while the male feeds her. Young fledge around 11 to 17 days.

Population and conservation#

American Goldfinches are common, widespread and in no trouble. Continental populations have been broadly stable, and the species adapts well to suburbs, roadsides, old fields and weedy edges.

They are, however, one of the species most often reported in feeder-related disease outbreaks, because they gather in tight flocks and feed for long stretches at the same ports. Salmonellosis in particular has repeatedly turned up in finch flocks in winter. Clean nyjer and sunflower feeders every two weeks, more often in wet weather, using the method in how to clean a bird feeder, and take feeders down for a couple of weeks if you find sick or dying birds.

A goldfinch setup that works#

• Two feeders, ideally a nyjer tube and a sunflower hearts tube, at least 6 feet (2 m) apart.
• Fresh seed in small quantities, bought in amounts you will use inside six weeks.
• Native seed-bearing plants left standing through winter: coneflower, coreopsis, aster, sunflower. Details in native plants for birds.
• Water in a shallow bath, which goldfinches use constantly in summer.
• A cleaning schedule you keep to, since flocking birds and dirty feeders are a bad combination.