Ways to Help Goldfinches!

What is this vividly colored bird? It's a goldfinch! Here is how you can help them:
Make a birdfeeder! Goldfinches love seeds, and in fact, will eat seeds exclusively, with insects not making up any fraction of their diet. You can add a twist to the customary bird-feeder by making them into Christmas tree ornaments! Goldfinches are most common in early fall, but you can hang up bird-seed ornaments(you don't need to have a pine tree)! Here is how to make them:
1. Purchase a bag of classic bird-seed from your local supermarket, and pour it into a bowl, OR use plain, unsalted sunflower seeds(they LOVE those!)
2. Now, take 1 cup (250 milliliters) coconut oil and mix it thoroughly in the birdseed(USE your HANDS, coconut oil is perfectly harmless!)
3. Mold the mixture into some baking molds(cookie-cutters, clay molds)
4. Let it sit in the refrigerator overnight, and pop them out of the mold. If they break, still hang it up! It's bird food! 

If you want, you can even plant sunflowers! When sunflowers begin to produce their seeds, goldfinches immediately find them and eat them with great relish. 


Male goldfinches are colored in a vivid yellow and have black wings, while females are a duller shade of yellow almost all over. Goldfinches breed in late summer, so that is when you are most likely to see them. However, they grow their plumage in spring.  Here is a picture of a female:

Do you see the difference?

Perhaps you noticed the conical shape of the goldfinches' beak. Goldfinches eat seeds exclusively, so the beak must be well suited for cracking them. Thus, it is very thick and strong-appearing, but also short. Goldfinches are also adapted to collecting seeds from plants in the way that their bodies are very light and flexible. The birds are capable of twisting their necks backwards to reach for a seed! Goldfinches are also very small, around five inches long, which helps them weave around in fields of flowers and balance on a thin stem. 

This is a photo that I took of a goldfinch taking off, and if you look closely. you can see the female behind it.