Hello,
My favourite bird is the goldfinch and I am desperate to have them visit the feeders in my garden. For several months I’ve had a couple of feeders out of sunflower hearts (the feeders have 4 & 6 perches) and I also have a nyjer seed feeder. I can hear them often from my back garden and see them sometimes in a tree a few doors down from my house but am yet to see them visit my feeders. Does anyone have any tips please?
Thanks,
Laura
Patience is probably the best advice. Any other species using the feeders? Goldies are mobile so it could be different birds you keep seeing. The species can take quite a while to work out there is a new food source……
Thanks for your reply. I mostly have house sparrows visit the feeders. I have the occasional siskin, great tit & blue tit too. But I guess you're right and I just need to hold tight for now!
It may be the position of the feeders. I had a nijer feeder under trees for a couple of years and never saw a goldfinch, but when I moved the feeders into a more open position >2m from the nearest cover, the goldfinches came. I think it is because they sit and feed at the feeder rather than taking seed away like blue tits,
I did wonder that, but OP stated other species were using feeders.
I wondered if it could be positioning too but none of my feeders have any sort of cover.
Yes, I also want to know that.
Going back to the first answer it may just need patience. It took a while for goldfinches to visit my feeders although they were in the neighbours garden. Even now they seem to have times of the year when they don’t visit the garden.
Hey,
I was in your position last year. It would be helpful to see what the feeders look like/how they're positioned.
Goldfinches can be very skittish & shy. If you're too close to the window they'll fly away or not even sit down.
"My" goldfinches do a fly-by to look if there's anyone by the feeders before landing.
Also, in my case the goldfinches are often scared away or bullied away by sparrows.
Patience and consistency is key. I had a nyjer feeder set up away from all the other feeders. For the first few months the goldfinches wouldn't dare to go to the sunflower heart feeders. Then they slowly moved to the sunflower heart feeders. They massively prefer hearts to whole sunflower seeds, in my experience.
Patience—they'll come!
Here’s a picture of the feeders at the back of my garden. They’re about 10m away from the back of the house. The sparrows much prefer the feeder on the left which is more enclosed. I rarely see anything on the feeder on the right which is more exposed. Appreciate any advice
The feeder on the right is too near the fence and therefore toooo exposed to danger of cats on fences and Sparrowhawk using the fence as cover> I would suggest sitting it nearer Paddington so the birds can use the bushes as cover.