American Goldfinches: Strict Vegetarians

Female and Male American Goldfinches

For my Fourth of July blog, I would like to talk about the American Goldfinch.

With a diet consisting entirely of seeds and an anti-confrontational attitude, the American Goldfinch is a vegetarian pacifist!

This bright yellow songbird is one of the strictest vegetarians in the bird world, preferring an entirely vegetable diet and only accidentally eating an occasional insect. Their cruelty-free lifestyle extends to adversaries as well, opting to turn the other cheek rather than join other songbirds mobbing predators.

American Goldfinches are numerous and their populations have been stable from 1966 to 2010. Partners in Flight estimates the global breeding population at 42 million, with 57 percent breeding in Canada, 71 percent spending some part of the year in the U.S., and 5 percent wintering in Mexico.

Habitat

Weedy fields, open floodplains, and other overgrown areas, particularly with sunflower, aster, and thistle plants for food and some shrubs and trees for nesting. Goldfinches are also common in suburbs, parks, and backyards.

Food

Goldfinches eat seeds almost exclusively. Main types include seeds from composite plants (in the family Asteraceae: sunflowers, thistle, asters, etc.), grasses, and trees such as alder, birch, western red cedar, and elm. At feeders prefers nyjer and sunflower.

Behavior

American Goldfinches are active, acrobatic finches that balance on the seed-heads of thistles, dandelions, and other plants to pluck seeds. They have a bouncy flight during which they frequently make their po-ta-to-chip calls. Although males sing exuberantly during spring, pairs do not nest until mid-summer, when thistles and other weeds have gone to seed. Goldfinches do not join other songbirds mobbing predators.

Other Facts

American Goldfinches are the only finch that molts its body feathers twice a year--once in late winter and again in late summer. The brightening, yellow of male goldfinches each spring is one welcome mark of approaching warm months.

American Goldfinches breed later than most North American birds. They wait to nest until June or July when milkweed, thistle, and other plants have produced their fibrous seeds, which goldfinches incorporate into their nests and also feed their young.

When Brown-headed Cowbirds lay eggs in an American Goldfinch nest, the cowbird egg may hatch but the nestling seldom survives longer than three days. The cowbird chick simply can’t survive on the all-seed diet that goldfinches feed their young.

Goldfinches move south in winter following a pattern that seems to coincide with regions where the minimum January temperature is no colder than 0 degrees Fahrenheit on average.

The oldest known American Goldfinch lived to be 10 years 5 months old.

Paired-up goldfinches make virtually identical flight calls; goldfinches may be able to distinguish members of various pairs by these calls.