Hungry American Goldfinch

For the last week I've been feeding black-oil sunflower seeds to a large flock of hungry American Goldfinch. If you think of a "goldfinch" as a bright yellow bird with a jaunty black cap (tipped low onto the forehead), then you're thinking of the breeding male. In the winter, males loose their colorful spring and summer plumage and dress in a more drab olive green, looking very much like their female counterparts.

Like many bird species, male and female American Goldfinch are different in color--the breeding male being ever so bright and the breeding female appearing a bit drab by comparison. However, males loose their brilliant plumage during the fall molt and then it's sometimes hard to tell the males from the females. (Maybe this is to keep them from becoming too vain! Ha!)

One sure sign of the wintering male goldfinch is a yellow shoulder patch, which isn't always so obvious since the yellow can vary in intensity. This photo (by Charles H. Warren and provided courtesy of the Digital Image Library of the National Biological Information Infrastructure) appears to be a wintering male, though the yellow shoulder patch is extremely pale.

Until next time, Happy birding!
Georgia Anne Butler