goldfinches feeding

Goldfinches Feeding In My Garden

Introduction

I can’t tell you how pleased I am to have goldfinches feeding in my garden regularly now I have erected a nyjer seed feeder. See this one in my feature image.

A friend across the road has goldfinches feeding regularly but I never have. Why? They never had anything to feed on in my garden. So I bought this expensive feeder, which holds fine nyjer seeds, from the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) together with some seed.

Here is a good article about goldfinches feeding on nyjer seed from East Lansing, Michigan, USA.

Goldfinches Feeding At Last

goldfinches feeding
A Goldfinch Eating A Nyjer Seed

I put up my new goldfinch nyjer-seed feeder and left it at least two weeks. I hadn’t seen a single sign of a goldfinch in that time. The level of seed had not gone down. Then one day I saw a bird which caught my attention as it flew off the feeder. I saw the same happen on another day. Then after a few more days I looked out of the window and saw two goldfinches feeding. Now I see them regularly. A couple of days ago I got another surprise. I watched as two arrived. Then two more arrived. So there are at least four in my vicinity. Now I see one or two several times a day. They must be coming regularly for me to see them because I am not looking out of the window for much of the day. Also I can see that the seed level has gone down five centimetres.

When they feed they stay on the feeder for several minutes. They aren’t as nervous as sparrows are on my wild bird seed feeder. The sparrows eat only a few seeds before they fly and others arrive.

Using Ring-pull Perches

Nyger Seed Feeder Ring-pull Perch
A Nyger-seed Feeder Ring-pull Perch

I have attached what are referred to as “ring-pull perches” to the Nyjer seed feeder (see picture to the right). These plug onto the stalk like perches that are part of normal feeders and produce a circular ring for birds to feed from. These perches enable birds to perch at various angles to the feeding holes. Some prefer (as in the featured image above) to present themselves directly in front of the feeding hole and not at right angles to it. This enables them to look out for predators, like Sparrow Hawks, with a wider field of view and, I suspect, get a better purchase when pulling on the seeds to get them out of the small holes in the feeder.

Two ‘ring-pull perches’ were supplied with the feeder but I decided to get two more for the other two perches from http://www.savethe.co.uk/ via eBay. These weren’t cheap but were more expensive from many other stores. Please note that there are two types of ‘ring-pull perches’ mine are circular but there are others which have two straight sides. I believe they fit a different brand of feeder.

goldfinches feeding
A Goldfinch Showing Its Face

Above is another picture of my little friend looking in my direction. You can find out more about him here.


Peanut Warning:

Remember! When feeding peanuts to birds in the spring to crumble them up so that baby birds don’t choke on them .


I have since written another post in 2014 you can read here: Goldfinches Eating Nyjer Seed? Yes


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