Bring bright, thistle-loving beauties to your backyard.
Seeing a vibrant yellow American goldfinch at a feeder is enough to make any birder’s heart skip a beat. Among the muted plumage of pine siskins, chickadees and sparrows, these bright beauties are a shock to the system.
“They are very striking,” says Scott Gremel, a wildlife biologist at Washington’s Olympic National Park. “They look like tropical birds.” Male and female goldfinches appear markedly different during breeding season, when males molt into bright yellow body feathers with black wings and cap and an orange bill. Juveniles and females are less colorful year-round. In winter, males have a dark bill and dull yellow body feathers, and look more like the females.
This story is from the August/September 2019 edition of Birds & Blooms.
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This story is from the August/September 2019 edition of Birds & Blooms.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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