These were very welcome visitors – about 8 to 10 of them. Last year I have seen no goldfinches at all, the whole year. A small flock last week made me really happy.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
They’re so pretty. I haven’t seen any in my garden, but at my parents ‘.
They are such cheerful looking birds. We get fewer here than we did in Sheffield, mainly I think because the teasels don’t do so well. In Shefffield we would get tall multi-headed teasels which come winter would get stripped by goldfinches taking turns, here we are lucky to get a couple of heads on a plant and they don’t self seed so well either.
Top picture bird looks pretty grumpy!
The black spot above the head of the first male birb looks like a mohawk at first glance.
The goldfinches in North America are the same shape but their coloring is quite different. I see them seasonally as they migrate to warmer wintering grounds.
Beautiful photos. They’re so colourful and the black bands around the eyes make them look quite fierce.