everywhere I looked there were little gold nuggets! I stopped counting after a hundred-twenty. I had never seen so much gold......in these little flyers. Goldfinches! These are called American Goldfinch. There are others called Lesser Goldfinch, and still another named Lawrence's Goldfinch.
American Goldfinch comes in December, usually. They have not developed their full colors of summer. In summer American Goldfinch male will be mostly yellow, with black wings and topknot. People have sometimes called them canaries which they are not. Lesser Goldfinch, which can be seen in the Hill Country in summer, will have black backs and head, with a few white stripes in the wings.Their breast will be yellow to the tail. Both of these are stunning birds.
They are not loners, running in small flocks.
Our American Goldfinches hang on bags eating tiny thistle seeds they pluck through a bag. They also love the black sunflower seeds. I could easily estimate their numbers yesterday for I had scattered the sunflower seed under a feeder and they were wing to wing devouring that much-needed nourishment. Water was close by. They alternated between drinking and bathing, in the same water!
A neighborhood cat came over the fence, uninvited, and plucked a hapless goldfinch before I knew it. Everyone has to eat. I imagine some hawk probably buzzed through while we were at church to get his Sunday dinner. It is an unrelenting danger for birds.
The problem we experience in Rockport is that the American Goldfinch leaves just as he gets his full array of summer color. I wish some would stay but they never do. They move on to another haunt to eat thistle and other seeds and be enjoyed by the folks there. Such is the birding experience. Oh yes, they shared those sunflower seeds with white-winged and mourning dove, cardinals, titmice, and the house sparrow!
