American Goldfinch

The American Goldfinch is the bright, bouncing finch of summer fields and feeders. The breeding male is unmistakable — brilliant lemon-yellow with a black cap, black wings barred white, and a pinkish bill — while females are a duller olive-yellow and winter birds of both sexes fade to soft buff-brown with blackish wings. Its flight is deeply undulating, each dip marked by a bright "po-ta-to-chip" call.

It is among the strictest seed-eaters of all birds, feeding almost entirely on the seeds of thistles, sunflowers and other composites and only incidentally taking an insect. That diet drives an unusually late nesting season: it waits until midsummer, when thistle and milkweed have set seed and down, then builds a cup so tightly woven it can hold water and lines it with plant fluff. The female lays four to six eggs.

In Maine the American Goldfinch is a common bird of weedy fields, edges and gardens, abundant at feeders stocked with nyjer and sunflower and a familiar flash of yellow through the summer. Feeders and seedheads are the obvious approach — set a natural perch near the food and wait, working for a breeding male against a clean background. Late summer, when adults are feeding young on thistle, concentrates them and gives the most activity.