All About Goldfinches: Backyard Bird Series - FreeSchool

The American goldfinch is a small, migrating bird that can be found across much of North America. In the summer, it ranges into Canada. In the winter, it can be found in Mexico. And all year round, it ranges all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Although they are very common backyard birds, you may have trouble recognizing a goldfinch if you see one. First, males and females have different coloring. The male is the most visible, with bright yellow plumage, black wings, and a little black cap on his head. The female is a duller yellow-brown, with no black cap. In the winter, goldfinches shed most of their colorful plumage and become mostly olive or brown in color, so it can be easy to miss them at your feeder. Goldfinches eat seeds, and very little else. In the wild, they eat seeds from thistles, dandelions, sunflowers, and ragweed. If you want to attract them to your yard, try adding hulled sunflower or thistle seeds. Because these seeds are so little, you may need to buy a special bird feeder with smaller openings to hold it. If you encounter a little yellow bird away from a feeder, look out! The yellow warbler may sometimes be mistaken for a goldfinch. You can figure out which bird you're looking at by checking the beak. Goldfinches have strong, cone-shaped beaks for cracking open seeds. The warbler's thin, pointed beak is used for eating insects, which is why you probably won't see him at a bird feeder. The American goldfinch is the state bird of Iowa, New Jersey, and Washington. Even though it's called the Eastern goldfinch in Iowa and New Jersey, and the Willow goldfinch in Washington, we're still talking about the same bird. I hope you enjoyed learning about the goldfinch. Good luck spotting one!