Thanks for the random thoughts, Jeff. Quite interesting.

My impression of this species in winter is that it is considerably
more common in eastern than in western Washington, contrary to the
winter abundance of many species. I've always assumed this was
because they like open country, with its abundance of herbaceous
plants with their small seeds. I haven't looked at Christmas counts,
but I assume their is a latitudinal gradient in wintering birds, with
some species more common in Portland than Seattle just because it's
farther south.

Goldfinches don't seem to take to red alders and red cedars like Pine
Siskins do around here. There was a siskin in the same feeder earlier
in the day, and it just looked at the seeds for a while and then flew
away. I could see the little thought balloon over its head with
"jeez, don't these people know about thistle seeds."

I've been thinking about trying shelled sunflower seeds just to
reduce the mess under the feeders, and maybe they will attract
additional species.

Dennis

On Jan 28, 2008, at 4:15 PM, Jeff Gilligan wrote:

> Some random thoughts: As is normal, great numbers of American
> Goldfinches are currently in the urban area of Portland. They
> favor American Elms and Sweet Gums, and also feed in various birch
> species. When I worked in downtown Portland I could sometimes see
> from my office hundreds at a time in the elms in the South Park
> Blocks. People who stock their feeders with shelled sunflower seeds
> get them in my neighborhood (Laurelhurst) in large numbers. They
> seem to have problems with the sunflower seeds that have their
> shells. They seem much less attracted to thistle seeds. (One
> American Goldfinch on my just completed dog walk was already in
> partial bright golden plumage.) The American Goldfinches seem much
> more arboreal in their feeding habits than the Lessers. The two
> species don?t mix much.

snip
-----
Dennis Paulson
1724 NE 98 St.
Seattle, WA 98115
206-528-1382
dennispaulson at comcast.net



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