That species pair (American vs. Lesser Goldfinch) is still pretty tricky for me. If you’re going by plumage there’s a fair amount of individual variation to contend with (and for the American, seasonal variation). Sibley (who’s probably getting fairly annoyed at what I’m doing to his copyright; maybe I should delete these?) shows some of them looking like this:
A big help is learning their voices. Both species are little chatterboxes, and if you learn to recognize them that way it will answer the question quickly in most cases.
For me the journey from beginning birder to slightly less of a beginning birder has meant learning to pay more attention to things besides plumage. There are many other clues, and for distant/poorly seen/otherwise-tricky IDs those clues can be more important than which colors are where on the bird.
Top two: Lesser Goldfinch
Bottom three: House Finch, who is yellow instead of red like most (I love him)
Posted Feb 12, 2019
Whoa. Your Texas LEGO males are wild-looking. I’ve had 30+ Lesser Goldfinches hanging off my two sock feeders lately, but none of them look like that.
Oh yes, we do get the black-backed flavor males here. I don’t know if I’ve seen the green-backed ones in Texas. My guide says most males from Colorado to Texas are black-backed, west of Colorado they’re green-backed. You do get some awkward-transition males during spring though:
Also HOT GOLDFINCH ACTION
The above photos were taken at the FABULOUS bird blind at Inks Lake State Park in Burnet County, TX (being in that blind was a religious experience). I left the blind and got to see two grey hairstreaks mating, then got onto a trail for a little bit, and a hummingbird saw me and immediately proceeded to I shit you notdo hardcore aerial maneuvers (like, he was painting the sky with a gigantic smiley face holy carp that hummer was either loving life or was seriously high on fermented sugar water). And he was flying AT me for part of his show, too.
I’m not sure if it was from reading this post, but this morning I looked out at the thistle sock outside the kitchen window and there was an almost-completely-black-backed male Lesser Goldfinch on it! It’s the first of those I remember seeing around here. He got away before I could snap a picture, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled and try to document him if he comes back so you can enjoy the sight of one black-backed male surrounded by umpteen green-backed ones. 😀
Allow me to add today’s new visitor to the yard:
PINE SISKIN!!!!!
The nearest pine is like, 20 miles away, but okay 😂 I keep joking about having great reviews on Finch Yelp
February 14, 2019
So, here’s the darkest male Lesser Goldfinch I’ve seen at my sock feeder in the last few days. Still some green on the back, but at least around here (SoCal) this counts as pretty dark:
Top two: Lesser Goldfinch
Bottom three: House Finch, who is yellow instead of red like most (I love him)
Posted Feb 12, 2019
Whoa. Your Texas LEGO males are wild-looking. I’ve had 30+ Lesser Goldfinches hanging off my two sock feeders lately, but none of them look like that.
Oh yes, we do get the black-backed flavor males here. I don’t know if I’ve seen the green-backed ones in Texas. My guide says most males from Colorado to Texas are black-backed, west of Colorado they’re green-backed. You do get some awkward-transition males during spring though:
Also HOT GOLDFINCH ACTION
The above photos were taken at the FABULOUS bird blind at Inks Lake State Park in Burnet County, TX (being in that blind was a religious experience). I left the blind and got to see two grey hairstreaks mating, then got onto a trail for a little bit, and a hummingbird saw me and immediately proceeded to I shit you notdo hardcore aerial maneuvers (like, he was painting the sky with a gigantic smiley face holy carp that hummer was either loving life or was seriously high on fermented sugar water). And he was flying AT me for part of his show, too.
I’m not sure if it was from reading this post, but this morning I looked out at the thistle sock outside the kitchen window and there was an almost-completely-black-backed male Lesser Goldfinch on it! It’s the first of those I remember seeing around here. He got away before I could snap a picture, but I’ll keep my eyes peeled and try to document him if he comes back so you can enjoy the sight of one black-backed male surrounded by umpteen green-backed ones. 😀
