Goldfinches

We put up a nyger seed feeder last summer and had no activity for for several months. In the Autumn a juvenile Goldfinch spent ages one day sitting on the feeder eating away to his/her hearts content. I thought our local Sparrowhawk might pop by and nab it, but no. Overt the Winter we have had occasional visits to the nyger feeder by Goldfinches, but they mostly visit our sunflower hearts feeder.

We have literally dozens of Goldfinches, by far the most prolific birds here. I have put up Sunflower hearts which seems to be the favoured food of all of the species, including the blasted squirrels! The Nyjer seed gets eaten when the sunflower seed feeder perches are all full

I've had a Nyjer feeder up for months now and today was the first time it was used, 2 Goldfinches. I had seen a lone one a couple of weeks ago in the tree but this is the first time I had seen them feeding.  Managed to ge this shot;

Sure do Alan, I'm hoping that they will tell their mates and I will get more than 2!  I've had a lovely weekend watching and photographing the birds.  Got some lovely shots of the male and female Balckcaps.

Will do Alan, they are regular visitors now.  Have you had a good weekend?

For some reason I do not get finches in my garden, the 2 Goldfinches today were the first (of many I hope).  Any idea why?

We moved house and had no goldfinches here at all despite the Nyjer feeder which had been so successful in our previous house. I put out sunflower hearts and they arrived in droves. They are now the most prolific of the birds we have in the garden, often 10 or 15 of them. All of the birds seem to like sunflower hearts...as do the squirrels! They still use the Nyjer feeder when the perches are full on the sunflower feeder.

Last year I had lots of Goldfinches, a few Greens' and a couple of Siskins would visit quite often. This year I've barely seen any finches ;-( which is such a shame as Gold's are so pretty, and we love seeing them feed.