Don't see many finches here, so great excitement...we don't get out much.
as I said we get lots of them but I still am always mesmerised by them. As I am the swallows - I have to make myself not watch or I'd never get anything done - just stand and gawp for hours. Today's entertainment was the ducks - one female trying to escape the attentions of five males. She ended up standing on the NDN's pergola and quacking very loudly at the males on the ground. It's much funnier than anything on TV
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
I usually have to fill my feeder (standard size) every 3 days for them. They are incredibly greedy!
Or they may be like ours who like to chuck food everywhere. I discovered this when we had the snow and there was a black halo under the nyger feeder.
That's true as well! I'd say a good 1/4 of the seeds fall on the ground but then lots are eaten by the sparrows & the bullfinches who have become regulars for the last 2/3 weeks). The feeder is hanging from the Holly tree in front of my kitchen window and it is in constant use by the Goldfinches, no jokes... They certainly cost me lots of money in seeds!
We had no goldfinches - I'd not seen one in five years. We put out niger seeds. For months nothing happened. Then we swapped to sunflower and within days the feeders were mobs by gangs of goldfinches. Interestingly, no other finches. I've never seen a bullfinch or chaffinch or even a greenfinch here, though they do live locally. Lots and lots of parakeets though. they love sunflower too.
Where I live is a UK finch stronghold apparently. All I ever used to get in the garden though were a couple of chaffinches despite various feeders and growing seed plants. Then they logged out the larch plantations locally due to disease and all of a sudden I was getting flocks of 20-30 goldfinches turning up. Soon enough other finches followed them in and now we get bullfinches, siskins, redpolls, greenfinch and bramblings.
The local habitat is still great for finch food despite the reduced larch. Lots of alder and birch trees, fields full of thistle and sorrel, scrubby areas of dandelion and coltsfoot, and the cleared forest is now full of willow herb.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
That sounds lovely Wildedges. The goldfinches here love the hulled sunflowers (which I buy in bulk online - much cheaper) and they go through two large feeders' worth every 2-3 days. Interestingly, despite the no weed Smart mulch I've just put down underneath, there is suddenly a forest of what I presume are sunflower seedlings. I'm going to let them grow and see if they produce flowerheads - it might be cheaper!!!
You probably all know this, but I only found out after watching a brilliant series about renaissance art with Waldemar Januszczak that the goldfinch was used in painting to represent sacrifice and resurrection. It's something to do with a belief that they got their red faces from Jesus' blood on the cross.
You can tell I'm kicking my heels waiting for the football to start.
Glad you're getting greenfinches @wild edges . We found a few dead ones down here when there was the outbreak of trichomonosis a couple of years ago, and not seen any since.
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill
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“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”