Thursday, May 6, 2010

A Spring American Goldfinch

What we have here is one of my favorite birds. It 's an American Goldfinch! The first time I ever saw one of these little yellow birds was about two years ago. At the time, I didn't know there were any birds this colorful in the United States. I remember being fascinated by that flash of yellow I saw. Since then I've seen several of them.

After all of my recent bird closeups, you may be wondering why these pictures are not so close. Well, that's because this little bird was actually very far away. I'm still not sure how I saw it from where I was. At the beginning of the hiking trail are a lot of huge trees that conceal the inner forest from the parking lot. This bird was at the top of one of those that were not very close to the trail.

I think it was only the fact that this little bird just couldn't seem to keep still that I saw him at all. He kept hopping from branch to branch and kept turning his head. That black mask moving around helped a lot. I think I was mostly just lucky that he never flew very far away.

Here is where he flew down a little lower to another branch. At first I thought I lost him, but his animated nature helped me find him pretty quickly. The main problem was that the leaves around him were also moving a little bit. Up that high the wind was blowing them around pretty good. Some of those leaves looked the same color as the bird from where I was.

Look at he blurry group of leaves hanging down at the top right above. I pointed the camera at them more than once, thinking they were the goldfinch I was after. I'm glad the camera can zoom in and out pretty fast. It sometimes helps to pull back on the zoom a little bit, so you can see more of the area around the bird. These pictures were taken at the maximum zoom though.

You may have noticed that I said at the beginning of the post that this was a male. Only the male American goldfinch has that black bandit mask. The females are similar in color, but a little less brilliantly yellow, and without the mask. If you'd like to see more of these birds, just do a search here on my blog for American Goldfinch. I've had many adventures with them.

Nature Center Magazine today, Copas is exploring the state of Colorado, one of the most well-known states for nature lovers. This place is known for its high mountains and natural beauty. If you want to know a little more, go check out the article.

14 comments:

  1. What a beautiful bird. I love the bright yellow colour.

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  2. Another name for the goldfinch is wild canary, for obvious reasons. This bird goes through an amazing color transformation in early spring, from drab green and yellow to beautiful bird that you show here.

    What a wonderful speciman.

    Bill:www.wildramblings.com

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  3. Interesting kind of bird.=) Love the pics.

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  4. I love birds too. Saw Gold-finches these days too. It's pretty warm and birds love to go out. BTW, do you like bird cards?

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  5. Can't believe that you have missed this lovely bird for two years.
    I must have kept calling either him or her over and over again once I was in the jungle.

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  6. Catching up on your blog. Your bird pics are great. The yellow Goldfinch is gorgeous.

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  7. They are wonderful birds and oh, so pretty...I love seeing them too..we don't get many up north, but we do see some here.

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  8. I love goldfinch and we used to have some visit my back yard. Unfortunately the huge black birds seemed to have permanently scared them off.

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  9. We have a thistle feeder right in front of our kitchen window here in central Maryland, and the goldfinches and house finches love it. Sometimes we have as many as 4-5 on it at the same time. I love it when they hang upside down to feed. They prefer sunflower seeds but are not aggressive enough to compete with other birds at a regular feeder, so they tend to use the thistle feeder because no other birds can fit their beaks into the tiny slits. I love goldfinches; they are perhaps the most beautiful birds to grace our yard.

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  10. Simply beautiful and against the blue sky backdrop, gorgeous.

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  11. What a stunning bird! I'm not usually a fan of birds, but that Goldfinch really is so pretty.

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  12. Aah! She is living there too! Captured photos of her relatives here not too long ago. The color are beautiful!

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  13. These birds are especially fun to watch because they are so active! Too bad he was so far away, it would have been fun to have some video.

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  14. A chirpy birdie wearing a dazzling golden yellow.. is indeed a treat to the eyes. And it's awesome that you spot it from such a great distance Ratty.

    The only yellow birdies I've seen over here are the Black-headed Oriole, and that was a long time back.

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