Goldfinch Feeder

Goldfinches eat seeds almost exclusively — composites such as sunflowers, thistle and asters, grasses, and tree seeds from alder, birch, western red cedar and elm — and at feeders prefer nyjer and sunflower ⁴. Nyjer's popularity as a feeder seed is largely due to its ability to attract finches including American Goldfinch, Pine Siskin and Common Redpoll ¹. They are also happy feeding on the ground beneath feeders on spilled seed ⁴.

A mesh sock or fine-port tube keeps nyjer dry and limits it to finches; tube feeders keep seed fairly dry and short perches exclude larger birds ¹. For sunflower, any hopper or platform serves them. To keep goldfinches beyond the feeder, plant native thistles and other composite plants, as well as native milkweed — they nest late, in June or July, when those plants have set the fibrous seed they line nests with and feed to their young ⁴.

Place feeders close to natural cover such as trees or shrubs, which offer birds refuge from predators, but not so close to strong branches that squirrels can jump across — a distance of about 10 feet is the usual guidance ¹. Windows are the other hazard: collisions kill perhaps a billion or more birds a year in North America, and older rules about safe feeder-to-window distances are no longer thought valid — if a window is near a feeder, treat the glass with markings spaced no more than 2 inches apart, external screens or cords, rather than worrying about the distance ³.

Squirrel baffles — barriers placed between squirrels and feeders — are usually the best defense. Squirrels can jump to feeders placed less than ten feet from a tree or building, so a pole-mounted feeder in the open with a baffle below it, or a tilting baffle at least 18 inches in diameter above a hanging feeder, is the arrangement that works ¹.

Clean seed and suet feeders regularly — every week or two, and more often during heavy use or wet weather — by scrubbing off debris and washing the parts thoroughly with warm water and dish soap ¹. Hummingbird feeders need cleaning far more often, every couple of days and ideally every time they are refilled; discard the solution and clean immediately at any sign of cloudy water or black mold ¹.

If a sick bird appears — House Finch eye disease shows as red, swollen, runny or crusty eyes, and avian pox as wart-like growths around the eye, bill, legs and feet — remove the feeders the bird is using for a couple of weeks and clean the feeders and the area thoroughly, so disease is not spread at the feeder ². Salmonellosis, caused by Salmonella bacteria, is a common cause of mortality in feeder birds and spreads the same way ².

1. Project FeederWatch (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) — Feeding Birds: feeder types, food types, placement and cleaning
2. Project FeederWatch — Sick Birds and Bird Diseases
3. All About Birds (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) — Why Birds Hit Windows, and How You Can Help Prevent It
4. All About Birds (Cornell Lab of Ornithology) — American Goldfinch: Overview and Life History