Male goldfinches have been black-capped and buttery yellow for weeks - no, months really - inspiring something like lust perhaps in their female counterparts. But they are late to nest among the latest of the songbirds. They and their mates have been waiting for the thistles - with their “silvery down” - from which to weave their nests and feed their nestlings. The nests, these “silver baskets,” that the female goldfinch tightens and secures with strands of spider web (imagine that!) are so finely woven that she must cover them with her wings in the rain lest they fill with water. (Read or listen to Mary Oliver’s poem, The Goldfinches, to know what happiness and hope these lovely little birds inspire in early July https://voetica.com/voetica.php?collection=1&poet=27&poem=1918 )

Goldfinches are among the true vegetarians of the passerines (I had to look it up in the beginning, you can too). Absolutely no bugs, no meaty table scraps - just seeds and other plant-based food - remember this, if you are having a goldfinch couple to dinner this weekend. Because the brown headed cowbirds (see my Bad Birds? blog https://www.carlcooley.photography/blog/bad-birds) still have not learned this lesson. When they choose to deposit their eggs in a goldfinch nest, the cowbird nestlings can’t survive on the goldfinch vegetarian diet. Harsh lesson, but Darwinian justice of sorts, perhaps.

Male goldfinches molt completely twice a year - an uncommon feat among songbirds. In the spring they strip off their subdued winter feathers and gradually don their bright yellow vest against black wings and caps. Then, in the fall they shed this attractive (literally for their mates) garb in favor of their more subdued winter plumage.

By the way, Donna Tartt’s Pultizer Prize winning novel, The Goldfinch, refers to a real painting of that name by Carel Fabritius, a promising student of Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (whom you may know simply as Rembrandt). The student, most of his life work, and most of his town except for The Goldfinch painting were destroyed in a massive explosion in 1654. But the painting still beautifully depicts the European goldfinch species, not to be confused with either of the two American goldfinch species. https://www.frick.org/exhibitions/mauritshuis/605