north carolina museum of art goldfinch | Best Life Birding- Birdwatching Tours

Got out for a quick trip to the NC Museum of Art this past weekend to check out what birds were flying around the Art Park fields.

Although the flowers seemed to be sparse this year, there were a ton of American Goldfinches feeding on the Zinnias and Sunflowers which added a nice pop of color to start off the morning.
Aren’t they beautiful?

The American Goldfinch is a year round resident of North Carolina although some folks may not recognize them once winter arrives. This is because the Goldfinches will molt out their cheerful yellow feathers and into a toned down olive colored plumage making them almost unrecognizable to the casual observer.

Seasonal appearances aside, Goldfinches are a familiar sight to many here in the Tarheel state as they are a frequent visitor to our feeders.
If you don’t get these guys visiting your backyard often enough, here are a few tips to entice these beauties to stay a bit longer.

*Plant sunflowers, thistle and zinnias in your garden. This natural food source will attract all sorts of other bird species too!

*Fill your feeders with Nyjer & thistle seed which is the Goldfinch’s favorite food.

*Use a mesh tube or soft sock style feeder which allows the finches to cling to the feeder’s side.

*Place a bird bath in your yard so that they’ve got a clean water source from which to drink & bathe.

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the full frame beast of an SLR, the mighty @canonusa
#5Ds

Yesterday, I decided to make a quick trip to the sunflower field at the North Carolina Museum of Art to see what was in the area after the remnants of tropical depression Sally passed over.
It was still sprinkling lightly as I pulled into the parking lot and I briefly considered waiting in the car for the rain to stop. Then I decided that this was probably the best time to be out here because the less than stellar weather conditions would deter other people from arriving, thus I’d have the Art Park mostly to myself.

Walking down the grassy hill, I could hear the sounds of happy birds from quite a distance. By the time I reached the sunflower field, I now understood what the feathered ruckus was about.
The plants were looking brown and faded but there were a ton of American Goldfinches feeding on the bounty of seeds still enshrined within the sunflower’s wilted heads!

One of my favorite moments was watching this male Goldfinch feeding one of his youngsters. The “little” (ok he was big lol) one was cheeping for a meal every 10 seconds and kept his Dad on the run for a refill of seeds.
They were not alone though…
This was but one scene repeated throughout the entire field, as scores of dutiful parents scrambled to feed their brood. It was really neat to see so many of these birds all in one place!

Interestingly, this beautiful little finch breeds far later that most of our songbirds.
The peak of goldfinch nesting occurs July through August and can even stretch into early September.
But why though?
This unusually late nesting season coincides with the time that our native thistle flowers will have matured and donned their characteristic soft white down. The thistle is particularly important to the American Goldfinch because the birds eat the seeds and line their nest with the down.
Pretty cool, huh?!

PS. Rainy days rock for bird photography. Cloudy, diffused light is awesome plus raindrops look cool in photos 🙂

Photos by @sally_siko of @birdwatching_nc on the fabulous full frame SLR, the @canonusa
#5Ds