A Beautiful Goldfinch
visited my garden
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| The European Goldfinch or Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) |
When sitting in my office room I noticed a hasty movement at the corner of my right
eye something that was attacking my Cyanus montanus plants in the garden.
When I gazed out toward the flowers I could hardly breethe, Even though I have
seen Goldfinches before, however not in my garden, but on the island Öland, my first
thought was that it was a exotic cage bird who had flown away from its life in the cage
and from its owner, then I noticed that it was a Goldfinch and grabbed my camera and
When I gazed out toward the flowers I could hardly breethe, Even though I have
seen Goldfinches before, however not in my garden, but on the island Öland, my first
thought was that it was a exotic cage bird who had flown away from its life in the cage
and from its owner, then I noticed that it was a Goldfinch and grabbed my camera and
went towards the open door at the entrance of my house. I knew that I probable
did not have so much time so I just tried to be as invisible as possible when reaching
out through the open door with my camera ready. It was a windy day and the Goldfinch
moved around a lot but these photos below are still amazing to me, it is the very first
time I have seen this little rascal in my garden and I hope that he will be back soon.
I had not been totally wrong in thinking it was a cage bird, since in the old days it
was kept in cages because of its beautiful songs, I have also red that it was (is?)
common to try and make a pair of a male Goldfinch and camary females to get
offsprings with the most beautiful singing voices. I was truly happy that this little
one was living free and had graced me with its precence.
 |
| The European Goldfinch or Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) |
They prefer small seeds such as those from thistles but here I saw the Goldfinch eating
the seeds from the plant Cyanus montanus, in Swedish "Bergklint", but they also take
insects when feeding the young. At the birdfeeders they love one particular seed the
niger seed, commercially described as nyjer seed which contains a high lvl of oil which
is needed during the winter season for those who might stay during the mild winters.
 |
| The European Goldfinch or Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis) |
Extremely enlarged very blurry picture however you can clearly see that this is a male
since males have a darker red mask that extends just behind their eyes. In females
the red face does not reach the eye. The average Goldfinch is 12-13cm long with a
wingspan of 21-25cm and a weight of 14-19 grams. It is truly a beautiful coloured bird.
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