Bird Biographies :: THE GOLDFINCH Finch Family FringillidAE

THE GOLDFINCH Finch Family FringillidAE

Length: About 5 inches.
Male: Spring and summer plumage—body and shoulders bright yellow; crown black; wings and tail, black and white; tail forked; feathers above tail, gray. Winter plumage—olive-brown back; throat, breast, and shoulders yellow; wings black and white.
Female: Olive-brown above; dull yellow below; wings and tail a dull black; white bars on wings, tail white-tipped; shoulders olive-green; grayish above tail. No black on crown.
Notes: An unusually sweet chirp or call-note like that of a canary, who-ee', with a rising inflection; a flight-note, per-chick'ory, given as the goldfinch bounds through the air; a number of gentle little twittering sounds, for these birds are very social and communicative.
Song: A rapid outpouring of notes in a wild, sweet, canary-like strain.
Flight: In great waves or undulations.
Habitat: Fields and gardens, or wherever its favorite food may be obtained.
Nest: In bushes or trees; made of soft grasses or fibers, and lined with thistledown.
Range: Eastern North America. Breeds from south-central Canada to Oklahoma, Arkansas, and northern Georgia; winters over most of its breeding range and south to the Gulf Coast.

In winter, the goldfinch may be distinguished from others of the finch or sparrow family by its undulating flight, its flight-note, per-chick'ory, and its call-note. Its black and white wings and tail are also distinctive. It is found in flocks during the winter season.

GOLDFINCH

The Goldfinch or “Wild Canary” is one of our best-loved birds. The beauty of the male’s coloring, the sweetness of his voice, the joyousness of his nature have won him many friends.

John Burroughs wrote: “The goldfinch has many pretty ways. So far as my knowledge goes, he is not capable of one harsh note. His tones are either joyous or plaintive. In his spring reunions they are joyous. In the peculiar flight song in which he indulges in the mating season, beating the air vertically with his round open wings, his tones are fairly ecstatic. His call to his mate when she is brooding, and when he circles about her in that long, billowy flight, the crests of his airy waves being thirty or forty feet apart, calling, ‘Perchic-o-pee, perchic-o-pee,’ as if he were saying, ‘For love of thee, for love of thee,’ and she calling back, ‘Yes, dearie; yes, dearie’—his tones at such times express contentment and reassurance.

“When any of his natural enemies appear—a hawk, a cat, a jay,—his tones are plaintive in sorrow and not in anger.

“When with his mate he leads their brood about the August thistles, the young call in a similar tone. When in July the nesting has begun, the female talks the prettiest ‘baby talk’ to her mate as he feeds her. The nest-building rarely begins till thistledown can be had, so literally are all the ways of this darling bird ways of softness and gentleness. The nest is a thick, soft, warm structure, securely fastened in the fork of a maple or an apple-tree.”[114]

The fondness of goldfinches for the seeds of thistles has given them the name of thistle-birds. While they eat insects during the summer, they are especially useful as seed-destroyers. At Marshall Hall, Md., Dr. Judd observed them eating their first fresh supply in the spring from dandelions; in June, they ate the seeds of the field daisy; in July, of the purple aster and wild carrot. Thistles and wild lettuce were feasted upon during August; while in September the troublesome beggar-tick and ragweed were eagerly sought. At one time Dr. Judd counted a flock of three hundred goldfinches busily stripping seeds from a rank growth of the latter weed; he discovered them, also, devouring seeds of the trumpet-creeper. They are invaluable aids to a farmer; the only fault of which they can be accused is that of “pilfering” sunflower seeds. The presence of sunflowers in a garden is likely to attract goldfinches, just as trumpet-creeper blossoms lure hummingbirds.

I recall a lovely garden in which I spent many pleasant hours one summer, happy in its beauty and fragrance, and in the companionship of bird visitors. Near my accustomed seat grew a clump of sunflowers, often sought by goldfinches. The black and gold of their plumage made a pretty sight against the yellow petals and dark centers of the great flowers. I remember one little bird that fluttered among the golden petals, too busy singing to eat for a time.

Two bird-hunting cats haunted the garden. I took a malicious pleasure in driving them away, because their ignorant, parsimonious owner had informed me that she kept them locked up while her chickens were young, so the cats wouldn’t catch them. She didn’t care how many birds were killed, for then she wouldn’t be obliged to feed the prowlers. The goldfinches soon learned that when I was there they could feast in safety. More than once when I was in the house or on the porch I would hear their alarm cry of DÉ-de? dÉ-de? sound from a maple near the piazza, plainly calling for my aid. When I went out to the garden and drove away their feline foes, the cries would cease. The angry owner of the cats, who dared not remonstrate further with me, cut down the sunflowers!

My most beautiful memory of goldfinches is associated with one of their spring mating-festivals. My sister and I had read Burroughs’s description of these love-feasts, so we were prepared to understand what the unusual chorus meant. The sweet call-notes of the males, interspersed with rapturous bursts of melody and frequent flutterings met with quick response from the olive-and-gold females, who chirped and said “Yes” with a joy pleasant to see! It is impossible to convey adequately any idea of the exquisite tenderness of their voices, of the absence of quarreling and jealousies,—of the perfect harmony of the proceeding. I can only wish that every person who loves birds might some time have the pleasure of a similar experience.

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