RE: Goldfinch food preference

["Donna S. Bailey" <dsbailey@conterra.com>]

At the risk of being the lone dissenter, the goldfinches at my feeder eat
thistle seeds only during the winter.  Both thistle and sunflower are
offered year-round but the goldfinches (and the occasional House Finch and
Purple Finch when I have them) eat thistle seed during the winter.  I do see
goldfinches on the sunflower seed feeder in winter (especially since I
started regularly offering sunflower chips or meats) but all the tussles for
perches break out at the thistle seed feeders (two feeders since the
invasion of the Pine Siskins last year for a total of twleve perches) rather
than the sunflower seed feeder (with only six perches).  The goldfinches do
not eat thistle during the summer or do so very infrequently.  In the summer
they eat sunflower seeds.  This winter is no exception.  They still seem to
prefer the thistle seed.  It is not disappearing as fast this year because
the real eating machines, known to ornithologists as Pine Siskins, aren't
here this year. I always figured the summer crowd didn't know how to feed
out of the "slot" type tube feeder while the winter crowd does know how to
nab a seed from that tiny "slot".  For what it is worth, I have never
noticed a Pine Siskin eating from anything but the thistle seed feeders.  

Donna Bailey
Winnsboro, SC
e-mail: dsbailey@conterra.com
URL: http://www.conterra.com/dsbailey
     "Where are the Birds?  Migration across South Carolina"