Goldfinches *******!

[Keith Talbot]

Originally Posted by loripo

and a partridge in a pear tree?

[SusieBee]

Yippee had me first one in today, unmistakable beauty!

I'm well chuffed hope it comes back.....

[Jason Claxton]

Antisocial Bird Orders for the Goldfinch,always squabbling,I do love them though.

[nightshade]

The pair of Bullfinches that turn up sit and look askance at the Golfinches
then the female Bullfinch gets in amongst them and drives them off.

[paddy]

If you're getting trouble with goldfinch bullies on the feeders, move the nyger feeder a way off from the others. The goldies tend to sort themselves out then, as they always seem to go for that rather than the more general feeds.
It's frozen in East Anglia at the moment - the desperation in the small bird population in the morning seems to bring the biggest range of birds out, and they tend to be braver. Whatever you've got locally - it's gonna be there!

[Billy Wobble Dagger]

Having just moved house and left our flock of goldfinches, and other birds, behind it would be great to have them back, squabbling or not. I agree about moving the niger seed away from the other feeders, not only will it allow other birds to feed on nuts etc but it will probably attract more goldfinches as well

BWD

[Ilex]

Sounds like a nice problem to have! We only get one, two or possibly three 'Goldies'. Ours don't get much of a look in because of the Greenfinches! The most I've ever seen was at my Mum's where each port of her 6-port seed feeder had a 'Goldie' feeding with another on the hanger waiting its turn.

The bossiest bird we ever had in the garden was a Blackcap in late winter 2001. At the time, I had a hanging seed feeder on a Silver Birch and a ground table near the foot of this same tree. The Blackcap would be feeding and chasing away all others from the hanging feeder then the others would flock to the ground table. When the Blackcap spotted this, he'd fly down and angrily chase them all away at which point the others would go back to the hanging feeder and the cycle would start over again. The Blackcap was easily the fattest bird around - like a little grey tennis ball with a black patch!

Graeme