The wild canary
By PAUL G. JANTZEN
Contributing writer
Back in 1995 on July 15, Elaine and I were surveying the ponds and roadside ditches of the Flint Hills for waterfleas. Early that evening, in a pasture of native grasses and scattered small Osage orange trees, we were pleasantly surprised to see a flock of bright yellow American goldfinches and their olive colored mates. As we approached, they displayed their characteristic undulating flight pattern once described as "roller coaster flights over invisible hills and valleys of air." The valleys were often "punctuated with a [musical] ti-dee'-di-di."
This goldfinch ranges from coast to coast across the U.S. and is the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa, and Washington. Its habitats extended from southern Canada to the southern U.S. Northern populations shift southward for the winter, while southern-most flocks move farther south toward the Gulf coast.
In Kansas, goldfinches are more common in the east half of the state where they stay through the year being joined in winter by northern populations. During the 2002 Christmas Bird Count in nearby Harvey County (on Dec. 14); 120 goldfinches were sighted.
As the name implies, the male goldfinch displays a summer plumage of intense yellow in contrast to its black wings, tail, and forehead. In winter, the males become dull olive yellow. They regain their full yellow and black plumage in March and April. Females look much like the winter males. Both have about 1,000 more feathers during the cold season than in summer.
These finches are the latest of all species to breed (mid-June in Kansas) which insures a plentiful food supply for hatchlings. Nests are usually built in upright forks of deciduous trees or shrubs where grasslands approach woodlands. They are usually within five feet of the ground, though at times they may nest up to 30 feet high.
The cup-shaped nests are built of tightly woven plant fibers and lined with down from thistles, cattails, or cottonwood, with occasional feathers. The nests are so firmly built that they may hold water, resulting in drowned nestlings during a rainstorm if not protected by parent birds. They sometimes reconstruct abandoned nests of other species by adding a lining of down.
Nest building requires 13 days in July, but only five or six days for a second clutch in August. The shorter time needed in August may be due to their previous experience or to the more plentiful food supply requiring less time off to forage for food. There are usually four or five eggs, all a bluish white, and unmarked.
After an incubation period of 13 days, the hatchlings are fed in the nest for about 12 days. The adults eat food, soften, and partially digest it before regurgitating it into the open mouths of their hungry offspring, seed by seed. The male supplies the brooding female in the same way.
Goldfinches live mostly on plant foods like the seeds of ragweeds, thistles, shepherd's purse, goosefoot, sunflowers, dandelions, and elms. They remove the hulls and snip off the plumes, if present, remove the meat and discard the shell before eating the meat. They also eat the buds of fruit trees, birch, and Siberian elms. They eat occasional insects such as aphids, caterpillars, small grasshoppers, and beetles.
Snakes, blue jays, and weasels may prey on nesltings. Preying on both fledglings and adults are snakes, kestrels, northern and loggerhead shrikes, and domestic cats.
The American goldfinch is often called "wild canary" because of its yellow plumage and its delightful song.
